Model comparison
Inkling-Small vs Qwen3.5-9B
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 23.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 90% for Inkling-Small and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.45 / $1.20 for Inkling-Small.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 33.8 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 524K | 262K |
| Max output | 1.05M | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.45 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 48.7% | 27.5% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1409 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling-Small: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 8.3% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | 12% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.15 | 139.46 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1423 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |
| DTBench | — | 71.2% |
| LMCA | — | 24.5% |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | 61.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1459 | — |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | 79% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1402 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1465 | — |
| LMArena French | 1436 | — |
| LMArena German | 1405 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1405 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1363 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1391 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1428 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1399 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1414 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1418 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling-Small better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling-Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small 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; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Is Inkling-Small or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Inkling-Small does, with 524K tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling-Small and Qwen3.5-9B share?
6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.