Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)

Claude Opus 4 vs Thinking Machines: Inkling benchmark

Name: Claude Opus 4 vs Thinking Machines: Inkling AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Opus 4 (Anthropic) and Thinking Machines: Inkling (thinkingmachines) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 17, 2026. Thinking Machines: Inkling wins on output price at $4.05/1M. Thinking Machines: Inkling has the larger context window (1M tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude Opus 4

First Claude 4 Opus generation. Baseline for opus 4 vs opus 5.

Elo 1,490$75/1M out

thinkingmachines

Thinking Machines: Inkling

Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (thinkingmachines/inkling). Preview until a second source matches.

$4.05/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4 (7)vsThinking Machines: Inkling (3)

Claude Opus 4: 7W (70%)Overall: Claude Opus 4Thinking Machines: Inkling: 3W (30%)

← Claude Opus 4Thinking Machines: Inkling →

Claude Opus 4 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,490vs—

Coding Elo

1,502vs—

SWE-bench

72.5%vs—

LiveBench

66.8%vs—

GPQA Diamond

80.4%vs—

Claude Opus 4: 5WThinking Machines: Inkling: 0W

Claude Opus 4 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

58 tok/svs—

Time to first token

390 msvs—

Claude Opus 4: 2WThinking Machines: Inkling: 0W

Thinking Machines: Inkling (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$4.05/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$0.95/1M

Context window

200kvs1M

Claude Opus 4: 0WThinking Machines: Inkling: 3W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageClaude Opus 4 4/6

Preference Elo

No shared data

Throughput Speed

No shared data

Token Price Efficiency

Thinking Machines: Inkling

$70.95/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,490

EloHigh is better

—

Code Elo

High is better

1,502

Code EloHigh is better

—

LiveBench

High is better

66.8%

LiveBenchHigh is better

—

SWE-bench

High is better

72.5%

SWE-benchHigh is better

—

GPQA

High is better

80.4%

GPQAHigh is better

—

TTFT

Low is better

390 ms

TTFTLow is better

—

Speed

High is better

58 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

—

In $

Low is better

$15.00 / 1M

In $Low is better

$0.95 / 1M+1479%

Out $

Low is better

$75.00 / 1M

Out $Low is better

$4.05 / 1M+1752%

Context

High is better

200k

ContextHigh is better

1M+424%

Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 94% with Thinking Machines: Inkling

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude Opus 4$1,650.00 / mo

In: $525Out: $1,125

Thinking Machines: Inkling$94.00 / mo

In: $33.25Out: $60.75

Estimated Cost Delta

Thinking Machines: Inkling is estimated to save $1,556.00/month ($18,672/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Thinking Machines: Inkling:Pick Thinking Machines: Inkling when you are optimizing output cost.
2
Thinking Machines: Inkling:Pick Thinking Machines: Inkling for million-token RAG or long-document jobs.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatThinking Machines: Inkling

Lower output list price ($4.05/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGThinking Machines: Inkling

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4

Claude Opus 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	insufficient data	Need SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chat	Thinking Machines: Inkling	Lower output list price ($4.05/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	insufficient data	Need TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAG	Thinking Machines: Inkling	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4	Claude Opus 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Community Sentiment

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Opus 4

Elo 1,490

LiveBench66.8%

SWE-bench72.5%

Speed58 tok/s

Output cost$75/1M

thinkingmachines

Thinking Machines: Inkling

Elo n/a

LiveBench—

SWE-bench—

Speed—

Output cost$4.05/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?: We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.
Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?: SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Thinking Machines: Inkling output tokens are $4.05/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?: We do not have TTFT for both models.
Which has the larger context window?: Thinking Machines: Inkling accepts 1M tokens versus 200k.
Can I self-host either model?: Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Opus 4 and Thinking Machines: Inkling Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Opus 4 matchups →|All Thinking Machines: Inkling matchups →

Claude Opus 4 vs Claude 3 Opus (previous opus)Claude Opus 4 vs Claude Opus 4.5 (next opus)Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4 Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Opus 4 Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Opus 4 Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Opus 4

Claude Opus 4 vs Thinking Machines: Inkling benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Opus 4 (7)vsThinking Machines: Inkling (3)

Claude Opus 4: 7W (70%)Overall: Claude Opus 4Thinking Machines: Inkling: 3W (30%)

← Claude Opus 4Thinking Machines: Inkling →

Claude Opus 4 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,490vs—

Coding Elo

1,502vs—

SWE-bench

72.5%vs—

LiveBench

66.8%vs—

GPQA Diamond

80.4%vs—

Claude Opus 4: 5WThinking Machines: Inkling: 0W

Claude Opus 4 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

58 tok/svs—

Time to first token

390 msvs—

Claude Opus 4: 2WThinking Machines: Inkling: 0W

Thinking Machines: Inkling (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$75/1Mvs$4.05/1M

Input price

$15/1Mvs$0.95/1M

Context window

200kvs1M

Claude Opus 4: 0WThinking Machines: Inkling: 3W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatThinking Machines: Inkling

Lower output list price ($4.05/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGThinking Machines: Inkling

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Opus 4

Claude Opus 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	insufficient data	Need SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chat	Thinking Machines: Inkling	Lower output list price ($4.05/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	insufficient data	Need TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAG	Thinking Machines: Inkling	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Opus 4	Claude Opus 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?

We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.

Which is better at coding, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?

SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Thinking Machines: Inkling output tokens are $4.05/1M versus $75/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Opus 4 or Thinking Machines: Inkling?

We do not have TTFT for both models.

Which has the larger context window?

Thinking Machines: Inkling accepts 1M tokens versus 200k.

Can I self-host either model?

Neither model is marked open-weights here. You are comparing hosted APIs.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Opus 4 and Thinking Machines: Inkling Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.