BenchLeader
Menu

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small

Full profiles: Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic) and Inkling 2 Small (Thinking Machines): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 13 sources

As of 13 Nov 2026, Claude Opus 5.5 is ahead of Inkling 2 Small on quality (68.4 vs 57.9 on the BenchLeader Index), but Inkling 2 Small is 17× cheaper at $0.475 vs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended. Claude Opus 5.5 leads in every category we measure both in. Inkling 2 Small streams faster.

Key facts (as of 13 Nov 2026)

  • Claude Opus 5.5 scores 68.4 on the BenchLeader Index and Inkling 2 Small scores 57.9 (BenchLeader, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 costs $8.00 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Inkling 2 Small costs $0.475 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Inkling 2 Small streams faster than Claude Opus 5.5 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Of the 24 benchmarks both models have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 22 (BenchLeader, 13 Nov 2026).
  • On Arena WebDev, Claude Opus 5.5 is rated 1815 and Inkling 2 Small 1647 (LMArena, as published by 13 Nov 2026).
Claude Opus 5.5 benchmarks max Anthropic Inkling 2 Small benchmarks Thinking MachinesAdd a third model

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingClaude Opus 5.580 vs 60 category score; Arena WebDev 1815 vs 1647High
Agents & tool useEither62 vs 61 category score; APEX-Agents 73.5% vs 46.8%Either
ReasoningClaude Opus 5.572 vs 53 category score; HLE-Diamond (AA) 67.9% vs 28.7%High
KnowledgeClaude Opus 5.573 vs 54 category score; AA-Omniscience v1.1 48.1 vs 16.1High
Long documentsEither67 vs 66 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 84.7% vs 83.3%Either
Images and other mediaClaude Opus 5.570 vs 64 category score; MMMU-Pro 87.7% vs 81.6%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Inkling 2 Small has an Arena rating (59 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costInkling 2 Small$0.475 vs $8.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.022 vs $0.320–
Fastest first answerInkling 2 Small63.9 s (Inkling 2 Small) vs 347.9 s (Claude Opus 5.5 (max)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max) leads on quality: 68.4 vs 57.9.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, knowledge, long context, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Inkling 2 Small is 17× cheaper ($0.475 vs $8.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5.5Inkling 2 Small
DeveloperAnthropicThinking Machines
Released22 Sep 20265 Nov 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Max output (tokens)128,000 (up to 300K on the Message Batches API (beta))–
Input typestext, image–
Reasoning effort settingslow, medium, high, xhigh, max–
Compared atClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$4.00 / $20.00 / $0.200$0.300 / $1.00 / –
API model IDclaude-opus-5-5–
Where to use itClaude API, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud, Microsoft Foundry–

Limits, availability and announced prices from the vendors' own pages: platform.claude.com (checked 20 Oct 2026). Everything else is from the day's data.

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 SmallLeader
Reasoning72.052.8Claude Opus 5.5
Coding79.860.3Claude Opus 5.5
Agents & tools61.861.1level
Maths73.2–not comparable
Knowledge72.553.5Claude Opus 5.5
Human preference–58.6not comparable
Multimodal70.264.0Claude Opus 5.5
Long context67.166.4level

On one chart

Each domain on the index's own scale, where 50 is an average model. Click a domain to see the benchmarks behind it. Pick up to 5 models from the list.

2550 avg75ReasoningCodingAgents & toolsKnowledgeLong contextMultimodalClaude Opus 5.5, Reasoning: 72.0Claude Opus 5.5, Coding: 79.8Claude Opus 5.5, Agents & tools: 61.8Claude Opus 5.5, Knowledge: 72.5Claude Opus 5.5, Long context: 67.1Claude Opus 5.5, Multimodal: 70.2Inkling 2 Small, Reasoning: 52.8Inkling 2 Small, Coding: 60.3Inkling 2 Small, Agents & tools: 61.1Inkling 2 Small, Knowledge: 53.5Inkling 2 Small, Long context: 66.4Inkling 2 Small, Multimodal: 64.0

Not drawn, measured for fewer than two of these models: Maths, Instruction following, Human preference.

Model, click to add or removeIndex

Where sources disagree

Across the 24 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 22, Inkling 2 Small leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5.5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 SmallLeader
BenchLeader Index68.457.9Claude Opus 5.5
AA Intelligence Index v5.059.130.6Claude Opus 5.5
Vals Index70.1†56.1Claude Opus 5.5
Arena Text1507†1412Claude Opus 5.5

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page. Cost, tokens and time per benchmark task are measured: Artificial Analysis’ averages over its whole Intelligence Index run.

MeasureClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Blended price per 1M tokens$8.00$0.475
Input / output per 1M$4.00 / $20.00$0.300 / $1.00
Cached input per 1M$0.200–
Price per task: chat reply$0.0076$0.0004
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.060$0.0042
Price per task: code edit$0.054$0.0033
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.320$0.022
Price per task: structured extraction$0.012$0.0008
Agentic coding session, input mostly cached$0.149–
Cost per benchmark task (AA Index)$10.04$1.18
Output tokens per task (AA Index)173k150k
Of which reasoning120k88k
Time per task (AA Index)25 min28 min
Output speed115 tok/s90 tok/s
Time to first answer347.9 s63.9 s
Time to a complete answer711.4 s163.6 s

Per token is not per task: an average task of Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index cost $10.04 on Claude Opus 5.5 (max) and $1.18 on Inkling 2 Small, and Claude Opus 5.5 (max) wrote 1.2× as many output tokens for the same work.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5.5 (max) scores 68.4 and takes 348 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5.5 (xhigh) scores 65.4 in 79 s, Claude Opus 5.5 (high) scores 65.3 in 25 s. Inkling 2 Small scores 57.9 and takes 64 s to its first answer token. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

140 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader68.457.9
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader61.861.1
Coding scoreBenchLeader79.860.3
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader72.553.5
Long context scoreBenchLeader67.166.4
Maths scoreBenchLeader73.2–
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader70.264.0
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader72.052.8
Human preference scoreBenchLeader–58.6
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$8.00$0.475
Output speedBenchLeader115 tok/s90 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader347.9 s63.9 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub90.6%–
SimpleBenchSimpleBench88.4%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1530†1438
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench92.2%†–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench92.2%–
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis61.4%44.1%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis67.9%28.7%
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%96.5%†
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize91.7%81.7%†
CritPtArtificial Analysis31.7%–
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis68.0%35.0%
MysteryMechanismVals AI49.5%†25.2%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub67.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub71.0%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub68.2%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode66.9%52.3%
FrontierCodeCognition54.6%†–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1548†1485
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)18151647
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench87.1%†–
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench89.3%–
IOIVals AI95.1%†–
Code MigrationVals AI66.7%†–
Code Migration v1.1Vals AI81.0%†–
Show all 140 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5.5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Coding
ProgramBenchVals AI18.5%†0.5%
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI70.2%†43.1%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI30.4%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI90.3%†81.5%
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.6%–
CursorBenchCursor57.8%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2147.4†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub62.3%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis59.6%13.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis–81.3%
Startrise FrontendStartrise71.1%†–
GameBench 2 OverallDuelLab GameBench 287.6†–
GameBench 2 by reasoning settingDuelLab GameBench 294.9†–
Design Arena WebsiteDesign Arena1326†1335
FrontierCode 1.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis52.2%–
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis46.4%25.4%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench65.8%13.0%†
Remote Labor IndexScale AI / CAIS21.3%†–
APEX-AgentsMercor73.5%46.8%
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)19.52.5
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench72.8%†–
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench88.4%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench71.7%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI87.6%†–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL85.4%†85.4%
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL59.0%†–
GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised scoreArtificial Analysis68.3%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis18661630
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis–40.4%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis38.2%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis56.3%51.3%
CUA-benchVals AI14.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI55.4%†72.7%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI67.8%†67.5%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI9.2%†21.7%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI3.8%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI50.5%†46.6%
Robo-benchVals AI14.6%–
SREBenchVals AI33.6%†1.9%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI44.5%†38.9%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI65.2%†12.6%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI47.1%†2.9%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI91.3%†–
Web Search IndexVals AI53.8%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1213†–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.8%–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs9235.3†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis69.5%45.6%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis26.2%25.2%
Harvey LAB-AA v1.1Harvey4.2%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis–46.8%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis18011527
GDPxGDPx by SemiAnalysis12.0%–
Design Arena AgenticDesign Arena1332†1374
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis59.0%5.7%
CWE-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis58.3%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis26.9%–
CyberGym end-to-end (AA)Artificial Analysis0.8%–
FACTS SearchGoogle88.4%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub91.2%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.0%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub100.0%–
ProofBenchVals AI100.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench97.1%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1514†–
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub72.2%–
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%†–
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench88.9%†–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench80.3%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis48.116.1
PRBench LegalScale AI SEAL47.6%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†70.0%
ClaimBenchVals AI100.0%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI75.9%†–
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI75.8%†69.5%
MedCodeVals AI49.8%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.4%†–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI70.6%†–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub71.4%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.6%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis65.5%33.8%
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis49.7%73.3%
HealthBench Professional (AA)OpenAI59.9%–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench86.3%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench65.7%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1518†1410
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1507†1412
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1340†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1517†1345
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1502†1415
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1520†1410
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1324†–
LiveBench DesignLiveBench83.3%†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis87.7%81.6%
SAGEVals AI91.3%†88.6%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub51.2%†–
Code2Video-AAArtificial Analysis15361020
AA-3DArtificial Analysis12021027
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis84.7%83.3%
MLCRArtificial Analysis27.8%20.6%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub168.5†–
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench83.4%†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench83.2%–
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis59.130.6
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis57.6–
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis350–
Vals IndexVals AI70.1†56.1
Vals Finance IndexVals AI65.3%†61.5%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI37.3%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI58.6%†32.7%
Vals Router IndexVals AI64.2%†–
AA Cyber IndexArtificial Analysis28.7–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL5.8%16.2%
Metadata
AA Openness IndexArtificial Analysis–38.9

Data as of 2026-11-13. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

DuelLab GameBench 2, release gb2-20261110-2acac640a228 (https://benchmarks.duellab.org/releases/gb2-20261110-2acac640a228/), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Scores mapped to BenchLeader model names; not endorsed by DuelLab.

What changed

  • Inkling 2 Small: BenchLeader Index 58.4 → 57.9.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 2 new results (FORTRESS, Design Arena Agentic).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 1 new result (PostTrainBench); 1 score revision.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 2 new results (MysteryMechanism, Vals Science Index); 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 1 new result (MirrorCode); 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): BenchLeader Index 69.3 → 68.8.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 3 new results (SciCode, APEX-Agents, MLCR).
  • Claude Opus 5.5 (max): 2 score revisions.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 8 new results (Arena Text, Arena Hard Prompts, Arena Coding…); 2 score revisions.
  • Inkling 2 Small: BenchLeader Index 57.5 → 58.4.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Opus 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small: questions

Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than Inkling 2 Small?
Claude Opus 5.5 (max) leads on quality: 68.4 vs 57.9. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5.5 (max) is ahead overall as of 13 Nov 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
Claude Opus 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Inkling 2 Small is cheaper today: $0.475 against $8.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Inkling 2 Small better for coding?
Claude Opus 5.5 scores higher in coding (80 vs 60 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1815 for Claude Opus 5.5 against 1647 for Inkling 2 Small.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 5.5 or Inkling 2 Small?
Inkling 2 Small streams faster (115 vs 90 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is Claude Opus 5.5 or Inkling 2 Small better for agents and tool use?
They are level in agentic tasks (62 vs 61 on the category index). On APEX-Agents, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 73.5% for Claude Opus 5.5 against 46.8% for Inkling 2 Small.
More questions (4)
Which is better for long documents?
They are level on long-context benchmarks (67 vs 66). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Opus 5.5 1,000,000, Inkling 2 Small 1,048,576.
Which has lower latency?
Inkling 2 Small answers first: 63.9 s against 347.9 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 5.5 vs Inkling 2 Small?
Across the 24 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5.5 leads 22, Inkling 2 Small leads 2. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5.5 ahead.
When was Inkling 2 Small released?
Inkling 2 Small was released on 5 Nov 2026.