Model comparison
Grok 4.1 Fast vs Qwen3.5-9B
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 2.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.1 Fast's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.1 Fast scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Grok 4.1 Fast leads 36.3 to 14.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 87.7% for Grok 4.1 Fast and 71.2% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.20 / $0.50 for Grok 4.1 Fast.
- Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 33.8 |
| Released | 2025-06-27 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 30K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 10 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5-9B leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 34.1 (#245), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1242 | — |
| SciCode | — | 27.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1411 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 394.93 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#39), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 69.6% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.1% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1171 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,107 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 43.4 (#49), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 87.7% | 71.2% |
| SimpleBench | 56% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.4% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 12% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | — |
| LMCA | — | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.46 |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Qwen3.5-9B leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 31.9 (#221), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 60.9% | 48.5% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 61.7% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1408 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.1 (#207), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 79% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1399 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 37.0 (#76), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1201 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.0 (#114), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1391 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1441 | — |
| LMArena French | 1415 | — |
| LMArena German | 1404 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1413 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.7 (#133), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#126), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1390 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.2 (#131), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1408 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1394 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1327 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.1 Fast better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 2.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.1 Fast's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3.5-9B?
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.1 Fast lists at $0.20 and $0.50.
Is Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.9 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.1 Fast and Qwen3.5-9B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.1 Fast has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.