Model comparison
Inkling-Small vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 28.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 46.3% for Inkling-Small and 20.4% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.49 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 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 37.6 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2026-04-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 524K | 262K |
| Max output | 1.05M | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.45 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $1.49 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 14 |
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Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 48.7% | 35.8% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1409 | — |
| WeirdML | — | 34.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling-Small: —, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 23% |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 8.3% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | 26% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | 22% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.15 | 143.93 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 41.6% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1423 | — |
| DTBench | — | 73.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 44.4% |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | 20.4% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | 86.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1459 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| 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), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1399 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1414 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1418 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling-Small better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 37.6 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.49 per million output tokens; Inkling-Small lists at $0.45 and $1.20.
Is Inkling-Small or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 37.2 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 Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?
8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.