Model comparison
Inkling vs Qwen3.5-9B
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling leads 40.4 to 23.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 88.9% for Inkling and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.87 / $4.68 for Inkling.
- Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 66K.
Side by side
| Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 33.8 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 66K | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.87 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4.68 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5-9B leads
Inkling: 34.5 (#234), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 47% | 27.5% |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1413 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1464 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Inkling leads
Inkling: 29.6 (#85), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |
Reasoning Inkling leads
Inkling: 40.4 (#56), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 5.4% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | 12% |
| DTBench | 87.5% | 71.2% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.54 | 139.46 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 36.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 50% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 79.5% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | — |
Math Qwen3.5-9B leads
Inkling: 31.3 (#225), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | 61.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 33.3% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 4.9% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| ProofBench | 0% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1479 | — |
Knowledge Inkling leads
Inkling: 55.1 (#49), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 79% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1465 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Inkling: 54.0 (#52), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1490 | — |
| LMArena French | 1458 | — |
| LMArena German | 1446 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1404 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1448 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Inkling: 75.1 (#71), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1426 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Inkling: 43.8 (#86), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1434 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Inkling: 65.2 (#51), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1441 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1387 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Inkling's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Inkling 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 lists at $1.87 and $4.68.
Is Inkling or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.9 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 66K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling and Qwen3.5-9B share?
8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.