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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.8 vs Inkling

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 12 shared benchmark results across 4 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

77.8/100
Margin
8.8pts
← winning
Inkling
Thinking Machines Lab
69/100
4 category wins1 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #1; Inkling #17

BenchAlign evidence: Claude Opus 4.8 supported; Inkling not scored. Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Inkling share 12 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 41 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 4 to Inkling.

Updated July 15, 2026
Shared results
12
Claude Opus 4.8 only
41
Inkling only
4
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.8 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Inkling only becomes the better choice if mathematics is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 12 shared benchmark results across 4 evidence categories; 5 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Claude Opus 4.8 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 84 to 69. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Claude Opus 4.8's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 81.1 against 68.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 69.2% to 54.3%. Inkling does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.8 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.87 input / $4.68 output per 1M tokens for Inkling. That is roughly 5.3x on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Inkling is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Claude Opus 4.8 and Inkling
CategoryClaude Opus 4.8ΔInkling
MathClaude Opus 4.853.9Margin→ 43.2Inkling97.1
CodingClaude Opus 4.881.1Margin← 12.5Inkling68.6
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.862.7Margin← 11.0Inkling51.7
AgenticClaude Opus 4.880.3Margin← 10.9Inkling69.4
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.877.0Margin← 0.5Inkling76.5
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 4.8Not measuredMarginNo overlapInkling79.8

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · Claude Opus 4.8B · Inkling

  1. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 69.2%B 54.3%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 14.9
    SWE-bench Pro: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 69.2%; Inkling scored 54.3%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  2. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 57.9%B 46%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11.9
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 57.9%; Inkling scored 46%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  3. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 88.6%B 77.6%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; Inkling scored 77.6%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  4. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 74.6%B 63.8%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 10.8
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 74.6%; Inkling scored 63.8%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

  5. CharXiv

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 89.9%B 82%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 7.9
    CharXiv: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 89.9%; Inkling scored 82%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricClaude Opus 4.8InklingComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 outputInkling$1.87 input / $4.68 outputInkling has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.8Not availableInklingNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.8Not availableInklingNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.81MInkling1MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%63.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
BrowseCompSource 84.3%77.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
DeepSearchQASource 93.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 83.4%—Not comparable
Finance Agent v2Source 53.9%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1600—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 82.2%74.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
ToolathlonSource 59.9%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 72.97%—Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 47.2%—Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 94.4%—Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 55.0%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 21.1%—Not comparable
OSWorld 2.0Source 20.6%—Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource 1354—Not comparable
AA AutomationBenchSource 48.5%—Not comparable
AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource 44.0%—Not comparable
AA Harvey LABSource 7.5%—Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource 27.6%—Not comparable
Design Arena Agentic Web DevSource —1258Not comparable
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 88.6%77.6%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE-bench ProSource 69.2%54.3%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
SWE MultilingualSource 84.4%—Not comparable
SWE MultimodalSource 38.4%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 74.6%63.8%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
cursorBench31Source 58.4%—Not comparable
cursorBench32Source 62.3%—Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 74.3%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource 58.3%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 53.5%—Not comparable
FrontierCodeSource 46.5%—Not comparable
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Source 84.6%—Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
AA-LCRSource 67.7%—Not comparable
CritPtSource 20.9%—Not comparable
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
GPQASource 93.6%87.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
GPQA-DSource 93.6%87.9%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
HLESource 57.9%46%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 49.8%30%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 55.7%—Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 92.0%—Not comparable
AA-HLESource 45.7%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 27.4%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 46.6%—Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 35.9%—Not comparable
MathInkling wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
USAMO 2026Source 96.7%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 47.241%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 31.250%—Not comparable
AIME26Source —97.1%Not comparable
Multilingual
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
INCLUDESource 87.6%—Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.8 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
OfficeQA ProSource 66.2%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 87.9%—Not comparable
CharXivSource 89.9%82%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 80.5%78.1%Claude Opus 4.8 leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1274—Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource —73.5%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.8InklingResult
AA-IFBenchSource 62.2%—Not comparable
IFBenchSource —79.8%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 84 to 69. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 69.2% and 54.3%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 62.7 versus 51.7. Inside this category, HLE w/o tools is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 81.1 versus 68.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Inkling has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.1 versus 53.9. Claude Opus 4.8 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.3 versus 69.4. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77 versus 76.5. Inside this category, CharXiv is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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