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Claude Opus 5 vs Inkling 2 Small

Full profiles: Claude Opus 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 is ahead of Inkling 2 Small on quality (64.9 vs 57.9 on the BenchLeader Index), but Inkling 2 Small is 21× cheaper at $0.475 vs $10.00 per 1M tokens blended. Choose Claude Opus 5 for reasoning (66 vs 53), knowledge (65 vs 54), and human preference (68 vs 59); choose Inkling 2 Small for long context (66 vs 64), where it also streams ~2× faster.

Key facts (as of 13 Nov 2026)

  • Claude Opus 5 scores 64.9 on the BenchLeader Index and Inkling 2 Small scores 57.9 (BenchLeader, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Claude Opus 5 costs $10.00 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 ~2× faster than Claude Opus 5 (Artificial Analysis, 7-day median, 13 Nov 2026).
  • Of the 29 benchmarks both models have, Claude Opus 5 leads 25 (BenchLeader, 13 Nov 2026).
  • On Arena WebDev, Claude Opus 5 is rated 1691 and Inkling 2 Small 1647 (LMArena, as published by 13 Nov 2026).
Claude Opus 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 568 vs 60 category score; Arena WebDev 1691 vs 1647Medium
Agents & tool useClaude Opus 564 vs 61 category score; τ³-Banking (AA) 42.1% vs 40.4%Medium
ReasoningClaude Opus 566 vs 53 category score; HLE-Diamond (AA) 44.8% vs 28.7%High
KnowledgeClaude Opus 565 vs 54 category score; AA-Omniscience v1.1 37.6 vs 16.1High
Long documentsInkling 2 Small66 vs 64 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 83.3% vs 79.3%Medium
Images and other mediaClaude Opus 567 vs 64 category score; MMMU-Pro 84.7% vs 81.6%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)Claude Opus 568 vs 59 on Arena votesHigh
Lowest costInkling 2 Small$0.475 vs $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.022 vs $0.400–
Fastest first answerEither53.0 s (Claude Opus 5 (max)) vs 63.9 s (Inkling 2 Small) 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 (max) leads on quality: 64.9 vs 57.9.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, human preference, knowledge, multimodal, reasoning.
  • Inkling 2 Small is stronger in long context.
  • Inkling 2 Small is 21× cheaper ($0.475 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5Inkling 2 Small
DeveloperAnthropicThinking Machines
Released24 Jul 20265 Nov 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,048,576
Compared atClaude Opus 5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$0.300 / $1.00 / –

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 (max)Inkling 2 SmallLeader
Reasoning66.152.8Claude Opus 5
Coding67.560.3Claude Opus 5
Agents & tools64.061.1Claude Opus 5
Maths69.8–not comparable
Knowledge64.753.5Claude Opus 5
Human preference68.158.6Claude Opus 5
Multimodal67.264.0Claude Opus 5
Long context64.366.4Inkling 2 Small

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 contextMultimodalHumanpreferenceClaude Opus 5, Reasoning: 66.1Claude Opus 5, Coding: 67.5Claude Opus 5, Agents & tools: 64.0Claude Opus 5, Knowledge: 64.7Claude Opus 5, Long context: 64.3Claude Opus 5, Multimodal: 67.2Claude Opus 5, Human preference: 68.1Inkling 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: 64.0Inkling 2 Small, Human preference: 58.6

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

Model, click to add or removeIndex

Where sources disagree

Across the 29 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 25, Inkling 2 Small leads 4. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5 (max)Inkling 2 SmallLeader
BenchLeader Index64.957.9Claude Opus 5
AA Intelligence Index v5.044.230.6Claude Opus 5
Arena Text14891412Claude Opus 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 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$0.475
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$0.300 / $1.00
Cached input per 1M$0.500–
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0004
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.0042
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.0033
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.022
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0008
Agentic coding session, input mostly cached$0.198–
Cost per benchmark task (AA Index)$11.82$1.18
Output tokens per task (AA Index)118k150k
Of which reasoning73k88k
Time per task (AA Index)24 min28 min
Output speed82 tok/s90 tok/s
Time to first answer53.0 s63.9 s
Time to a complete answer191.6 s163.6 s

Per token is not per task: an average task of Artificial Analysis' Intelligence Index cost $11.82 on Claude Opus 5 (max) and $1.18 on Inkling 2 Small, and Inkling 2 Small wrote 1.3× as many output tokens for the same work.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5 (max) scores 64.9 and takes 53 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5 scores 64.7 in 2 s, Claude Opus 5 (high) scores 64.2 in 18 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 (max)Inkling 2 Small
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader64.957.9
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader64.061.1
Coding scoreBenchLeader67.560.3
Human preference scoreBenchLeader68.158.6
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader64.753.5
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.366.4
Maths scoreBenchLeader69.8–
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader67.264.0
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader66.152.8
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$0.475
Output speedBenchLeader82 tok/s90 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader53.0 s63.9 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.9%–
SimpleBenchSimpleBench80.6%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)15131438
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.2%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis93.2%–
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis54.9%44.1%
HLE-Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis44.8%28.7%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.4%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%96.5%†
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize90.4%81.7%†
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize30.2%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis29.1%–
CritPt v2 hard subset (AA)Artificial Analysis50.0%35.0%
MysteryMechanismVals AI37.4%†25.2%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.3%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub97.6%–
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.6%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub12.0%†–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode56.4%52.3%
WeirdMLWeirdML91.8%–
FrontierCodeCognition53.4%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)15281485
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)16911647
Show all 140 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)Inkling 2 Small
Coding
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.5%–
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.0%†–
IOIVals AI84.3%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI97.0%†–
Code MigrationVals AI57.5%†–
ProgramBenchVals AI3.0%†0.5%
SWE-bench MultimodalVals AI–43.1%
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI28.5%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI88.4%†81.5%
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL63.2%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL62.2%†–
MirrorCodeEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub87.8%–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.7%–
CursorBenchCursor46.6%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2164.6†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis49.0%13.1%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis89.1%81.3%
Startrise FrontendStartrise82.3%†–
GameBench 2 OverallDuelLab GameBench 276.6†–
GameBench 2 by reasoning settingDuelLab GameBench 284.8†–
Design Arena WebsiteDesign Arena1304†1335
FrontierCode 2.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis31.1%25.4%
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench52.1%13.0%†
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld31.4%–
APEX-AgentsMercor65.8%46.8%
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)7.22.5
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench65.2%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI84.6%†–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL85.8%†85.4%
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL57.0%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench48.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis–1630
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis42.1%40.4%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis53.8%51.3%
CUA-benchVals AI9.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI65.4%†72.7%
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Finance Agent v2.1Vals AI–67.5%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–21.7%
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI6.7%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.3%†46.6%
SkillsBenchVals AI60.4%†–
SREBenchVals AI12.2%†1.9%
Tax Agent BenchVals AI47.1%†38.9%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI53.5%†12.6%
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI27.1%†2.9%
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI18.8%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1213†–
BALROGBALROG63.4%–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub35.7%†–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub79.6%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs11181.9†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis56.6%45.6%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis21.6%25.2%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis47.5%46.8%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis16551527
Design Arena AgenticDesign Arena1264†1374
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis28.6%5.7%
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis25.9%–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.6%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.2%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%–
ProofBenchVals AI99.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench95.7%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1515–
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.9%–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench74.5%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1Artificial Analysis37.616.1
MMLU-ProVals AI91.6%†–
LegalBenchVals AI87.0%†–
CorpFinVals AI73.2%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.1%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†70.0%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.6%†–
Excel Modeling Benchmark v1.1Vals AI–69.5%
MedCodeVals AI63.6%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.0%†–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI76.9%†–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL53.7%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.7%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%–
AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracyArtificial Analysis60.9%33.8%
AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis40.6%73.3%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench88.7%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench63.8%–
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)14941410
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)14891412
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1365†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)14731345
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)14861415
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)15021410
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1318†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis84.7%81.6%
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.9%†–
MortgageTaxVals AI72.1%†–
SAGEVals AI–88.6%
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.4%†–
Code2Video-AAArtificial Analysis–1020
AA-3DArtificial Analysis–1027
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis79.3%83.3%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1486†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis11.1%20.6%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub164.7†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench80.1%–
AA Intelligence Index v5.0Artificial Analysis44.230.6
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis50.8–
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis333.7–
Vals IndexVals AI–56.1
Vals Finance IndexVals AI–61.5%
Vals RSI IndexVals AI33.0%–
Vals Science IndexVals AI47.9%†32.7%
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI73.9%†–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL16.8%†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).
  • Inkling 2 Small: 2 new results (MysteryMechanism, Vals Science Index); 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (MirrorCode).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): BenchLeader Index 65.5 → 65.0.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 3 new results (SciCode, APEX-Agents, MLCR).
  • 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.
  • Inkling 2 Small: 1 new result (Arena WebDev).
  • Inkling 2 Small: first results.

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

Claude Opus 5 vs Inkling 2 Small: questions

Is Claude Opus 5 better than Inkling 2 Small?
Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 64.9 vs 57.9. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5 (max) is ahead overall as of 13 Nov 2026, but check the category scores for your use.
Claude Opus 5 vs Inkling 2 Small: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Inkling 2 Small is cheaper today: $0.475 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5 or Inkling 2 Small better for coding?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher in coding (68 vs 60 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1691 for Claude Opus 5 against 1647 for Inkling 2 Small.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 5 or Inkling 2 Small?
Inkling 2 Small streams ~2× faster (90 vs 82 output tokens per second, Artificial Analysis 7-day median).
Is Claude Opus 5 or Inkling 2 Small better for agents and tool use?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher in agentic tasks (64 vs 61 on the category index, where 50 is average). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 42.1% for Claude Opus 5 against 40.4% for Inkling 2 Small.
More questions (4)
Which is better for long documents?
Inkling 2 Small scores higher on long-context benchmarks (66 vs 64). Both take about 1M tokens: Claude Opus 5 1,000,000, Inkling 2 Small 1,048,576.
Which has lower latency?
Claude Opus 5 answers first: 53.0 s against 63.9 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 vs Inkling 2 Small?
Across the 29 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 25, Inkling 2 Small leads 4. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.
When was Inkling 2 Small released?
Inkling 2 Small was released on 5 Nov 2026.