Model comparison

Grok 4.5 vs Qwen3.5-9B

Grok 4.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 55.0 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 8 shared benchmarks.

Grok 4.5 xAI

55.0

Rank #22 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #235 Confirmed

Summary

They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.5 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 4.5 leads 56.0 to 22.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 97.8% for Grok 4.5 and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Grok 4.5.
Grok 4.5 accepts more context: 500K tokens versus 262K.
Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Grok 4.5 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	xAI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	55.0	33.3
Released	2026-07-08	2026-02-23
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	500K	262K
Max output	500K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$2	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$6	$0.15
Results tracked	52	10

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

Category by category

Coding Grok 4.5 leads

Grok 4.5: 51.7 (#34), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	54.1%	27.5%
DeepSWE	53.8%	—
FrontierCode	42.4%	—
LMArena WebDev	1552	—
WeirdML	46.4%	—
LMArena Coding	1473	—
ALE-Bench	1,309	—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.5 leads

Grok 4.5: 44.4 (#15), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%
APEX-Agents	56.2%	—
τ²-bench Banking	47.9%	—
PostTrainBench	23.4%	—
GBAEval	65.4%	—
GDP.pdf	14%	—
LMArena Search	1213	—
Vending-Bench 2	3,887	—

Reasoning Grok 4.5 leads

Grok 4.5: 56.0 (#23), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
CritPt	15.4%	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	36%	12%
DTBench	96.5%	71.2%
LMCA	45.2%	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	154.02	139.45
ARC-AGI-2	52.6%	—
SimpleBench	70%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	83.5%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	79.9%	—
ARC-AGI-1	87.2%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1462	—
Surface Evolver Bench	74.4%	—

Math Grok 4.5 leads

Grok 4.5: 60.7 (#29), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	97.8%	61.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	57.2%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	24.4%	—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
ProofBench	31%	—
LMArena Math	1457	—

Knowledge Grok 4.5 leads

Grok 4.5: 62.3 (#21), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	93.4%	79%
SimpleQA Verified	48.3%	—
LMArena Expert	1466	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Grok 4.5: 37.8 (#63), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Vision	1287	—
Blueprint-Bench 2	27.3%	—
Furniture Assembly	22.5%	—
LMArena Document	1452	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Grok 4.5: 54.5 (#43), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1439	—
LMArena Chinese	1497	—
LMArena French	1458	—
LMArena German	1448	—
LMArena Japanese	1425	—
LMArena Korean	1402	—
LMArena Russian	1447	—
LMArena Spanish	1452	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Grok 4.5: 76.3 (#45), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1446	—

Long Context Not comparable

Grok 4.5: 44.8 (#54), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1463	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Grok 4.5: 65.9 (#40), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Grok 4.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1448	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1442	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1579	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1457	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Grok 4.5 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, Grok 4.5 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 4.5 lists at $2 and $6.

Is Grok 4.5 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Grok 4.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.7 versus 35.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Grok 4.5 does, with 500K tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Grok 4.5 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.5 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.