# Muse Spark 1.3 vs Qwen3.5-9B

> Muse Spark 1.3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.8 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 18× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Muse Spark 1.3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/muse-spark-1-3-vs-qwen3-5-9b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 7

## Summary

- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Muse Spark 1.3 scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 1 category; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Muse Spark 1.3 leads 73.1 to 34.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 99.2% for Muse Spark 1.3 and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $4.25 for Muse Spark 1.3.
- Muse Spark 1.3 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 54.8 | 33.8 |
| Rank | 27 | 236 |
| Context | 1.05M | 262K |
| Input $/M | $1.25 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $4.25 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Muse Spark 1.3: 56.6 (#21)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 59.7% | 27.5% |
| CursorBench | 41.6% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1657 | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1514 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Muse Spark 1.3: 38.6 (#30)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| APEX-Agents | 57.8% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 27.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- Muse Spark 1.3: 54.0 (#27)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 26% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 38% | 12% |
| DTBench | 96.5% | 71.2% |
| LMCA | 53.9% | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.75 | 139.46 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 85.1% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1503 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 25% | — |
| Bench to the Future 3 | 0.14 | — |

## Math

- Muse Spark 1.3: 73.1 (#21)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 99.2% | 61.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 74.4% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 46.3% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| ProofBench | 58% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1494 | — |

## Knowledge

- Muse Spark 1.3: 42.6 (#95)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 79% |
| LMArena Expert | 1516 | — |

## Multimodal

- Muse Spark 1.3: 43.7 (#22)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1309 | — |
| LMArena Document | 1471 | — |

## Multilingual

- Muse Spark 1.3: 57.4 (#8)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1481 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1529 | — |
| LMArena French | 1524 | — |
| LMArena German | 1515 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1474 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1501 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1490 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1490 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Muse Spark 1.3: 77.5 (#22)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1477 | — |

## Long Context

- Muse Spark 1.3: 45.6 (#32)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1488 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Muse Spark 1.3: 73.6 (#9)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.3 | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1490 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1455 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1906 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1482 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Muse Spark 1.3 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Muse Spark 1.3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.8 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 18× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Muse Spark 1.3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Muse Spark 1.3 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; Muse Spark 1.3 lists at $1.25 and $4.25.

### Is Muse Spark 1.3 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Muse Spark 1.3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 56.6 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Muse Spark 1.3 does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Muse Spark 1.3 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Muse Spark 1.3 has 37 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.