Model comparison
Inkling vs Qwen Plus
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling scores higher in 7 categories and Qwen Plus in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Inkling leads 55.1 to 27.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 88.9% for Inkling and 17.8% for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.87 / $4.68 for Inkling.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 66K.
- Inkling has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Inkling | Qwen Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 37.1 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2024-01-25 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 66K | 1M |
| Max output | 66K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.87 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4.68 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 20 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen Plus leads
Inkling: 34.5 (#234), Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1464 | 1328 |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1413 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| SciCode | 47% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling: 29.6 (#85), Qwen Plus: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |
Reasoning Inkling leads
Inkling: 40.4 (#56), Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | 1317 |
| DTBench | 87.5% | 81.1% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | 24% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 36.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 50% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 79.5% | — |
| CritPt | 5.4% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.54 | — |
Math Inkling leads
Inkling: 31.3 (#225), Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | 17.8% |
| LMArena Math | 1479 | 1326 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 33.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 4.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 0% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |
Knowledge Inkling leads
Inkling: 55.1 (#49), Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 48.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1465 | 1328 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | — |
Multilingual Inkling leads
Inkling: 54.0 (#52), Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1490 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1429 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1429 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1458 | — |
| LMArena German | 1446 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1404 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1448 | — |
Instruction Following Inkling leads
Inkling: 75.1 (#71), Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1426 | 1303 |
Long Context Inkling leads
Inkling: 43.8 (#86), Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1434 | 1324 |
Writing & Preference Inkling leads
Inkling: 65.2 (#51), Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1441 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1387 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | 1336 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling better than Qwen Plus?
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 4.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Inkling or Qwen Plus?
Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Inkling lists at $1.87 and $4.68.
Is Inkling or Qwen Plus better for coding?
Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 66K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling and Qwen Plus share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.