Model comparison

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) vs Qwen3.5-9B

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) is the stronger model overall, scoring 48.6 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)'s lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 7 shared benchmarks.

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) xAI

48.6

Rank #54 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 0 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads 52.3 to 23.1.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Terminal-Bench: 57.3% for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and 9.2% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $2.50 for Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning).
Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	xAI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	48.6	33.8
Released	2026-02-17	2026-02-23
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	30K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$1.25	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$2.50	$0.15
Results tracked	46	10

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 42.1 (#112), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena WebDev	1375	—
SciCode	—	27.5%
WeirdML	52.3%	—
LMArena Coding	1459	—
ALE-Bench	1,150	—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 34.4 (#46), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	57.3%	9.2%
τ²-bench Banking	18%	—
LMArena Search	1189	—
Vending-Bench 2	4,663	—

Reasoning Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.3 (#32), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
Chess Puzzles	24%	12%
DTBench	90.1%	71.2%
LMCA	38.7%	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	151.98	139.46
ARC-AGI-2	65.1%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	75%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	85.4%	—
ARC-AGI-1	89.5%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
Thematic Generalization	63.8%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1451	—
ForecastBench	61.4	—

Math Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 48.2 (#65), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	92.2%	61.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	44.9%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	17.1%	—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
ProofBench	14%	—
LMArena Math	1455	—

Knowledge Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) leads

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 52.8 (#60), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	89.3%	79%
SimpleQA Verified	30.2%	—
LMArena Expert	1439	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 33.3 (#98), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Vision	1263	—
Blueprint-Bench 2	0%	—
LMArena Document	1416	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 54.5 (#40), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1441	—
LMArena Chinese	1481	—
LMArena French	1476	—
LMArena German	1465	—
LMArena Japanese	1449	—
LMArena Korean	1417	—
LMArena Russian	1458	—
LMArena Spanish	1443	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 74.8 (#83), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1420	—

Long Context Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 45.5 (#34), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
CL-bench	22.2%	—
CL-bench Life	11.9%	—
LMArena Longer Query	1437	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning): 65.7 (#44), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning)	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1451	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1438	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1574	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1456	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) 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 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) lists at $1.25 and $2.50.

Is Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.1 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) and Qwen3.5-9B share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.20 (Non-Reasoning) has 46 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.