Model comparison
Inkling vs Qwen3 Max
Inkling and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (44.1 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Inkling scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3 Max in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Inkling leads 40.4 to 22.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 21% for Inkling and 4% for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 / $6 per million input/output tokens, against $1.87 / $4.68 for Inkling.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 66K.
- Inkling has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Inkling | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2026-07-15 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 66K | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.87 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $4.68 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 41 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Inkling: 34.5 (#234), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1464 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | 370.45 |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1413 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| SciCode | 47% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Inkling: 29.6 (#85), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Inkling leads
Inkling: 40.4 (#56), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1451 | 1448 |
| DTBench | 87.5% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 37.6% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 148.54 | 142.38 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 36.5% | — |
| SimpleBench | 50% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 79.5% | — |
| CritPt | 5.4% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Inkling: 31.3 (#225), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 33.3% | 18.9% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1479 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 4.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 0% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Inkling leads
Inkling: 55.1 (#49), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | 48.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1465 | 1455 |
Multilingual Too close to call
Inkling: 54.0 (#52), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1490 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1458 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1446 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1429 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1404 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1429 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1448 | 1462 |
Instruction Following Too close to call
Inkling: 75.1 (#71), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1426 | 1419 |
Long Context Inkling leads
Inkling: 43.8 (#86), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1434 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Inkling leads
Inkling: 65.2 (#51), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1441 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1387 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inkling better than Qwen3 Max?
Inkling and Qwen3 Max score almost the same on the Noometry Index (44.1 vs 43.7), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, Inkling or Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is cheaper. It lists at $1.20 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens; Inkling lists at $1.87 and $4.68.
Is Inkling or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 34.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 66K.
How many benchmarks do Inkling and Qwen3 Max share?
26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Inkling has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.