# Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Inkling

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Inkling across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-vs-inkling
- Last updated: October 14, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Inkling leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- Inkling has the higher overall point estimate 52.37 to 48.66. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in reasoning, where the averages are 22.9 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 79 for Inkling.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) in Mathematics, with scores of 23.860% and 33.333%.
- Inkling is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Inkling also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Hybrid |
| Context | 200K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 48.66 | 52.37 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 12 | 24 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | $1.87 / $4.68 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: 35.5 (Estimated · #77/124)
- Inkling public-lane score: 37.5 (Supported · #71/124)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 50% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 61.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| VITA-Bench | 17.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 48.51% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 27.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 63.8% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 77.1% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 74.1% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | Coming soon | 47.6% | Coming soon |
| CWE-bench v1 | Coming soon | 37.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 34 (Supported · #80/148)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 77.2% | 77.6% | Inkling |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 50.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | Coming soon | 54.3% | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 63.8% | Coming soon |
| FrontierSWE v2 | Coming soon | 4.1% | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | Coming soon | 85.5% | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | Coming soon | 77.6% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: 22.9 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)
- Inkling public-lane score: 79 (#14/29)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 13.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 67.5 (#35/54)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | Coming soon | 73.5% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 82% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | Coming soon | 78.1% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 54.5 (Supported · #62/181)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 83.4% | 87.9% | Inkling |
| GPQA-D | Coming soon | 87.9% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 46% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 30% | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | Coming soon | 87.1% | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | Coming soon | 86.3% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Inkling public-lane score: 87.6 (#35/128)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | Coming soon | 79.8% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 public-lane score: 36.4 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Inkling public-lane score: 58.3 (#11/12)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | Inkling | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 87% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 23.860% | 33.333% | Inkling |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 2.439% | 4.878% | Inkling |
| AIME26 | Coming soon | 97.1% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or Inkling?

Inkling has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Inkling?

The widest category gap is in reasoning, where the averages are 22.9 for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and 79 for Inkling.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 4.5 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 currently has 12 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Inkling cover on BenchLM?

Inkling currently has 24 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 Thinking](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-vs-claude-sonnet-4-5-thinking)
- [Inkling vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 Thinking](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-thinking-vs-inkling)
- [Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Inkling-Small](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-5-vs-inkling-small)
- [Inkling vs Inkling-Small](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 4.5 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-4-5)
- [Inkling profile](/models/inkling)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)