# Claude Opus 5 vs Inkling-Small

> Claude Opus 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 67.8 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-opus-5-vs-inkling-small
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 33

## Summary

- They share 33 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Opus 5 scores higher in 9 categories and Inkling-Small in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Opus 5 leads 86.2 to 45.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ProofBench: 99% for Claude Opus 5 and 6% for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small is cheaper at $0.45 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $5 / $25 for Claude Opus 5.
- Claude Opus 5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 524K.
- Inkling-Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Thinking Machines Lab |
| Noometry Index | 67.8 | 46.5 |
| Rank | 4 | 63 |
| Context | 1M | 524K |
| Input $/M | $5 | $0.45 |
| Output $/M | $25 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude Opus 5: 67.5 (#5)
- Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1691 | 1409 |
| SciCode | 56.4% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Coding | 1534 | 1451 |
| DeepSWE | 73.6% | — |
| FrontierCode | 53.4% | — |
| CursorBench | 46.6% | — |
| FrontierSWE | 52% | — |
| WeirdML | 91.8% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 2,165 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude Opus 5: 55.6 (#1)
- Inkling-Small: —

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 65.8% | — |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 31.4% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 48.7% | — |
| PostTrainBench | 35% | — |
| BALROG | 63.4% | — |
| GBAEval | 79.6% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 24% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 11,182 | — |

## Reasoning

- Claude Opus 5: 77.2 (#4)
- Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 90.4% | 40.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 97.5% | 84% |
| CritPt | 29.1% | 8.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 42% | 18% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1526 | 1423 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 59% | 6% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 162.78 | 150.15 |
| SimpleBench | 80.6% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 94.3% | — |
| EBR-Bench | 45.7% | — |
| DTBench | 97.9% | — |
| LMCA | 64.5% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.12 | — |

## Math

- Claude Opus 5: 86.2 (#8)
- Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 85.6% | 46.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 73.2% | 17.1% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 98.9% | 90% |
| ProofBench | 99% | 6% |
| LMArena Math | 1531 | 1459 |

## Knowledge

- Claude Opus 5: 66.8 (#9)
- Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.9% | 88.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 59.9% | 19.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1557 | 1442 |

## Multimodal

- Claude Opus 5: 50.8 (#8)
- Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1319 | 1235 |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 30.4% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 60.8% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1516 | — |

## Multilingual

- Claude Opus 5: 58.8 (#4)
- Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1501 | 1402 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1574 | 1465 |
| LMArena French | 1519 | 1436 |
| LMArena German | 1524 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1516 | 1405 |
| LMArena Korean | 1521 | 1363 |
| LMArena Russian | 1507 | 1391 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1519 | 1428 |

## Instruction Following

- Claude Opus 5: 79.2 (#7)
- Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1517 | 1399 |

## Long Context

- Claude Opus 5: 46.5 (#21)
- Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1515 | 1401 |

## Writing & Preference

- Claude Opus 5: 79.2 (#1)
- Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107)

| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | Inkling-Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1507 | 1414 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1491 | 1331 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2133 | 1491 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1499 | 1418 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1385 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Claude Opus 5 better than Inkling-Small?

Claude Opus 5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 67.8 to 46.5 on the Noometry Index. Inkling-Small costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Opus 5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or Inkling-Small?

Inkling-Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Claude Opus 5 lists at $5 and $25.

### Is Claude Opus 5 or Inkling-Small better for coding?

Claude Opus 5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.5 versus 43.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 5 does, with 1M tokens against 524K.

### How many benchmarks do Claude Opus 5 and Inkling-Small share?

33 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Opus 5 has 57 scored results on Noometry and Inkling-Small has 33.