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Model comparison

Claude Opus 4.6 vs Inkling

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 19 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

68.59/100
Margin
1.0pts
← winning
Inkling
Thinking Machines Lab
67.54/100
3 category wins2 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.6 #16 (Supported); Inkling #20 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.6 and Inkling share 19 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 27 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.6; 13 to Inkling.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
19
Claude Opus 4.6 only
27
Inkling only
13
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick Claude Opus 4.6 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 19 shared benchmark results across 5 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 4.6 has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 68.59 versus 67.54. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Claude Opus 4.6's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 69.1 against 51.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 53% to 46%. Inkling does hit back in mathematics, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Claude Opus 4.6 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. Inkling is the reasoning model in the pair, while Claude Opus 4.6 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 4.6 and Inkling
CategoryClaude Opus 4.6ΔInkling
MathClaude Opus 4.636.3Margin→ 60.8Inkling97.1
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.669.1Margin← 17.5Inkling51.6
AgenticClaude Opus 4.673.0Margin← 3.6Inkling69.4
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.677.3Margin← 0.8Inkling76.5
CodingClaude Opus 4.668.1Margin→ 0.5Inkling68.6
Inst. FollowingClaude Opus 4.6Not measuredMarginNo overlapInkling79.8

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Claude Opus 4.6B · Inkling

  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 53%B 46%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 7
    HLE: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 53%; Inkling scored 46%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  2. BrowseComp

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 83.7%B 77.1%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 6.6
    BrowseComp: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 83.7%; Inkling scored 77.1%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  3. MMMU-Pro

    Multimodal
    Source ↗
    A 77.3%B 73.5%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 3.8
    MMMU-Pro: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 77.3%; Inkling scored 73.5%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  4. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 91.3%B 87.9%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 3.4
    GPQA: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 91.3%; Inkling scored 87.9%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 80.8%B 77.6%
    Winner: Claude Opus 4.6Δ 3.2
    SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.6 scored 80.8%; Inkling scored 77.6%. Claude Opus 4.6 wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricClaude Opus 4.6InklingComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensClaude Opus 4.6$5 input / $25 outputInkling$1.87 input / $4.68 outputInkling has the lower combined listed price.
Generation speedtokens per secondClaude Opus 4.640 tok/sInklingNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenClaude Opus 4.61.78 sInklingNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensClaude Opus 4.61MInkling1MListed context windows are equal.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 65.4%63.8%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
BrowseCompSource 83.7%77.1%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
OSWorld-VerifiedSource 72.7%—Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 84.8%—Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 70.4%—Not comparable
DeepSearchQASource 73.7%—Not comparable
CyberGymSource 66.6%—Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 61.85%—Not comparable
ResearchClawBenchSource 19.9%—Not comparable
JobBenchSource 36.7%—Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource —74.1%Not comparable
Design Arena Agentic Web DevSource —1257Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource —32.3%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —36.9%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource —1239Not comparable
AA BriefcaseSource —836Not comparable
AA Tau3 BankingSource —23.7%Not comparable
CodingInkling wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 80.8%77.6%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
SWE-bench Verified*Source 75.6%—Not comparable
LiveCodeBench ProSource 70.7%—Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.4%54.3%Inkling leads
SWE-RebenchSource 65.3%—Not comparable
React Native EvalsSource 84.1%—Not comparable
Vibe Code BenchSource 57.57%—Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 45.7%46.1%Inkling leads
FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource 26.9%—Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source —63.8%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource —52.1%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
AA-LCRSource 58.3%63.3%Inkling leads
CritPtSource 2.8%5.4%Inkling leads
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
GPQASource 91.3%87.9%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
GPQA-DSource 89.2%87.9%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
SuperGPQASource 95%—Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 82%—Not comparable
MMLU-Pro (Arcee)Source 89.1%—Not comparable
HLESource 53%46%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 40%30%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
HealthBench HardSource 14.8%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (Text)Source 52.1%—Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.8%40.7%Inkling leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.0%87.2%Inkling leads
AA-HLESource 18.6%29.7%Inkling leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource 3.5%2.1%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 45.2%40.0%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 76.0%63.1%Inkling leads
MathInkling wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
AIME25 (Arcee)Source 99.8%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source 40.700%—Not comparable
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)Source 22.900%—Not comparable
AIME26Source —97.1%Not comparable
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.6 wins
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
MMMU-ProSource 77.3%73.5%Claude Opus 4.6 leads
ERQASource 51.6%—Not comparable
ScreenSpot ProSource 83.1%—Not comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)Source 64.8%—Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 72.5%73.5%Inkling leads
Design Arena WebsiteSource 1325—Not comparable
CharXivSource —82%Not comparable
CharXiv w/o toolsSource —78.1%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkClaude Opus 4.6InklingResult
AA-IFBenchSource 44.6%—Not comparable
IFBenchSource —79.8%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.6 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 68.59 to 67.54. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 53% and 46%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.1 versus 51.6. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Inkling has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 68.6 versus 68.1. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Inkling has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.1 versus 36.3. Claude Opus 4.6 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 73 versus 69.4. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Claude Opus 4.6 or Inkling?

Claude Opus 4.6 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.3 versus 76.5. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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