Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Ling 3.1 Flash
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Ling 3.1 Flash by InclusionAI? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 3.7 points higher (44.8 vs 41.1) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $1015; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Ling 3.1 Flash.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Ling 3.1 Flash | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 41.1 | −8.3% Ling 3.1 Flash is 8.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $1,014.56 | −62.9% Ling 3.1 Flash is 62.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.70s | 13.64s | +7.4% Ling 3.1 Flash is 7.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.30 / $0.90 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Ling 3.1 Flash vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 8.3% less intelligence, 62.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Ling 3.1 Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Ling 3.1 FlashToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/ling-3-1-flash · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/ling-3-1-flash?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill