# Inkling vs Qwen Plus

> Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 36.7 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.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/inkling-vs-qwen-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## 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 55.2 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.

## Snapshot

| | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 44.1 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 75 | 204 |
| Context | 66K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $1.87 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $4.68 | $1.20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Inkling: 34.1 (#229)
- Qwen Plus: 38.3 (#163)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1463 | 1328 |
| FrontierCode | 14% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1412 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 4.1% | — |
| SciCode | 47% | — |
| WeirdML | 32.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 946 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Inkling: 29.5 (#76)
- Qwen Plus: —

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 33.8% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 25% | — |

## Reasoning

- Inkling: 40.6 (#48)
- Qwen Plus: 27.6 (#101)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1452 | 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 | 148.6 | — |

## Math

- Inkling: 31.2 (#198)
- Qwen Plus: 22.0 (#266)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 88.9% | 17.8% |
| LMArena Math | 1482 | 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: 55.2 (#44)
- Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#245)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.3% | 48.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1468 | 1328 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 40.3% | — |

## Multilingual

- Inkling: 54.2 (#49)
- Qwen Plus: 45.3 (#170)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1434 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1495 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1428 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1430 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1453 | — |
| LMArena German | 1456 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1401 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Inkling: 75.3 (#65)
- Qwen Plus: 69.0 (#176)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1427 | 1303 |

## Long Context

- Inkling: 43.9 (#79)
- Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#153)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1436 | 1325 |

## Writing & Preference

- Inkling: 65.5 (#48)
- Qwen Plus: 52.4 (#171)

| Benchmark | Inkling | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1443 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1390 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1436 | 1336 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1611 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1226 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Inkling better than Qwen Plus?

Inkling is the stronger model overall, scoring 44.1 to 36.7 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: 38.3 versus 34.1 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.