Model comparison
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Inkling
Head-to-head evidence from 27 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #5 (Supported); Inkling #20 (Supported). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Inkling share 27 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 26 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 5 to Inkling.
Updated July 23, 2026- Shared results
- 27
- Claude Opus 4.8 only
- 26
- Inkling only
- 5
- 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 27 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 4.8 is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 78.34 to 67.54. 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 | Claude Opus 4.8 | Δ | Inkling |
|---|---|---|---|
| Math | Claude Opus 4.853.9 | Margin→ 43.2 | Inkling97.1 |
| Coding | Claude Opus 4.881.1 | Margin← 12.5 | Inkling68.6 |
| Knowledge | Claude Opus 4.862.7 | Margin← 11.1 | Inkling51.6 |
| Agentic | Claude Opus 4.880.3 | Margin← 10.9 | Inkling69.4 |
| Multimodal | Claude Opus 4.877.0 | Margin← 0.5 | Inkling76.5 |
| Inst. Following | Claude Opus 4.8Not measured | MarginNo overlap | Inkling79.8 |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
SWE-bench Pro
CodingA 69.2%B 54.3%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 14.9SWE-bench Pro: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 69.2%; Inkling scored 54.3%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
HLE
KnowledgeA 57.9%B 46%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11.9HLE: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 57.9%; Inkling scored 46%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
SWE-bench Verified
CodingA 88.6%B 77.6%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; Inkling scored 77.6%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
Terminal-Bench 2.0
AgenticA 74.6%B 63.8%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 10.8Terminal-Bench 2.0: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 74.6%; Inkling scored 63.8%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
CharXiv
MultimodalA 89.9%B 82%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 7.9CharXiv: 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.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Claude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 output | Inkling$1.87 input / $4.68 output | Inkling has the lower combined listed price. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Claude Opus 4.8Not available | InklingNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Claude Opus 4.8Not available | InklingNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Claude Opus 4.81M | Inkling1M | Listed context windows are equal. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
AgenticClaude Opus 4.8 wins22 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1594 | 1239 | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| 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% | 32.3% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | 94.4% | — | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | 54.7% | 36.9% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| ResearchClawBenchSource | 21.1% | — | Not comparable |
| OSWorld 2.0Source | 20.6% | — | Not comparable |
| AA BriefcaseSource | 1347 | 836 | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA AutomationBenchSource | 48.5% | — | Not comparable |
| AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource | 44.0% | — | Not comparable |
| AA Harvey LABSource | 91.1% | — | Not comparable |
| AA Tau3 BankingSource | 27.6% | 23.7% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| terminalBenchHardSource | 58.3% | — | Not comparable |
| aaTerminalBench21Source | 84.6% | — | Not comparable |
| Design Arena Agentic Web DevSource | — | 1257 | Not comparable |
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins10 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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% | 52.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-SciCodeSource | 53.5% | 46.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource | 46.5% | — | Not comparable |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
KnowledgeClaude Opus 4.8 wins10 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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% | 40.7% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | 92.0% | 87.2% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-HLESource | 45.7% | 29.7% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | 27.4% | 2.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | 46.6% | 40.0% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | 35.9% | 63.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
MathInkling wins4 benchmarks
Multilingual1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| INCLUDESource | 87.6% | — | Not comparable |
MultimodalClaude Opus 4.8 wins7 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Inkling | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 1270 | — | Not comparable |
| MMMU-ProSource | — | 73.5% | Not comparable |
| AA-MMMU-ProSource | — | 73.5% | Not comparable |
Frequently Asked Questions (6)
Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?
Claude Opus 4.8 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 78.34 to 67.54. 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 51.6. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Inkling?
Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 81.1 versus 68.6. Inside this category, AA Coding Index 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, AA Briefcase 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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