Model comparison
Inkling-Small vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling-Small scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling-Small leads 38.6 to 25.5.
- Inkling-Small is cheaper at $0.45 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Inkling-Small accepts more context: 524K tokens versus 262K.
Side by side
| Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 46.5 | 38.1 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 524K | 262K |
| Max output | 1.05M | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.45 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 33 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 43.6 (#85), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1409 | 1275 |
| LMArena Coding | 1451 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| SciCode | 48.7% | — |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling-Small: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
Reasoning Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 38.6 (#63), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1423 | 1372 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 84% | — |
| CritPt | 8.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 18% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 6% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 150.15 | — |
Math Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 45.1 (#77), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1459 | 1365 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 46.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 17.1% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 90% | — |
| ProofBench | 6% | — |
Knowledge Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 48.2 (#77), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1442 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.5% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 19.1% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Inkling-Small: 39.1 (#62), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | — |
Multilingual Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 51.7 (#104), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1402 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1465 | 1357 |
| LMArena French | 1436 | 1398 |
| LMArena German | 1405 | 1325 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1405 | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | 1363 | 1305 |
| LMArena Russian | 1391 | 1366 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1428 | 1360 |
Instruction Following Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 73.8 (#114), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1399 | 1355 |
Long Context Too close to call
Inkling-Small: 42.7 (#118), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1401 | 1378 |
Writing & Preference Inkling-Small leads
Inkling-Small: 59.6 (#107), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1414 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1418 | 1365 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1491 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling-Small better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Inkling-Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.5 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Inkling-Small or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Inkling-Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.45 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Inkling-Small or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Inkling-Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.6 versus 35.5 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-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling-Small has 33 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.