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Model comparison

Inkling vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 10 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

Thinking Machines Lab
69/100
Margin
17.6pts
← winning
51.36/100
3 category wins2 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: Inkling #17; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B #31

BenchAlign evidence: Inkling not scored; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B estimated. Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Inkling and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B share 10 comparable benchmark results. 5 of 8 categories are comparable. 6 results are unique to Inkling; 48 to Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Updated July 15, 2026
Shared results
10
Inkling only
6
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only
48
Comparable categories
5 / 8

Pick Inkling if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if coding is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 10 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 5 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Inkling is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 69 to 59. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Inkling's sharpest advantage is in agentic, where it averages 69.4 against 51.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HLE, 46% to 21.4%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B does hit back in coding, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Inkling is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Inkling gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 262K for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for Inkling and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
CategoryInklingΔQwen3.6-35B-A3B
AgenticInkling69.4Margin 17.9Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.5
MathInkling97.1Margin 8.9Qwen3.6-35B-A3B88.2
CodingInkling68.6Margin 5.2Qwen3.6-35B-A3B73.8
MultimodalInkling76.5Margin 0.2Qwen3.6-35B-A3B76.3
KnowledgeInkling51.7Margin 0.1Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.8
Inst. FollowingInkling79.8MarginNo overlapQwen3.6-35B-A3BNot measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

More
A · InklingB · Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
  1. HLE

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 46%B 21.4%
    Winner: InklingΔ 24.6
    HLE: Inkling scored 46%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 21.4%. Inkling wins this benchmark.
  2. Terminal-Bench 2.0

    Agentic
    Source ↗
    A 63.8%B 51.5%
    Winner: InklingΔ 12.3
    Terminal-Bench 2.0: Inkling scored 63.8%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 51.5%. Inkling wins this benchmark.
  3. SWE-bench Pro

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 54.3%B 49.5%
    Winner: InklingΔ 4.8
    SWE-bench Pro: Inkling scored 54.3%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 49.5%. Inkling wins this benchmark.
  4. AIME26

    Math
    Source ↗
    A 97.1%B 92.7%
    Winner: InklingΔ 4.4
    AIME26: Inkling scored 97.1%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 92.7%. Inkling wins this benchmark.
  5. SWE-bench Verified

    Coding
    Source ↗
    A 77.6%B 73.4%
    Winner: InklingΔ 4.2
    SWE-bench Verified: Inkling scored 77.6%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 73.4%. Inkling wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

MetricInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensInkling$1.87 input / $4.68 outputQwen3.6-35B-A3BNot availableA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondInklingNot availableQwen3.6-35B-A3BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenInklingNot availableQwen3.6-35B-A3BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensInkling1MQwen3.6-35B-A3B262KInkling lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

AgenticInkling wins
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 63.8%51.5%Inkling leads
BrowseCompSource 77.1%Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource 74.1%62.8%Inkling leads
Design Arena Agentic Web DevSource 1258Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 68.7%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource 52.6%Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource 1397Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource 67.2%Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource 35.6%Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource 25.9%Not comparable
ToolathlonSource 26.9%Not comparable
WideResearchSource 60.1%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 21.4%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 95.3%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 27.4%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1049Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 42.65%Not comparable
CodingQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 77.6%73.4%Inkling leads
SWE-bench ProSource 54.3%49.5%Inkling leads
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 63.8%51.5%Inkling leads
SWE MultilingualSource 67.2%Not comparable
LiveCodeBenchSource 80.4%Not comparable
NL2RepoSource 29.4%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 41.9%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench HardSource 34.8%Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 35.8%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
AA-LCRSource 63.7%Not comparable
CritPtSource 0.3%Not comparable
KnowledgeQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
GPQASource 87.9%86%Inkling leads
GPQA-DSource 87.9%Not comparable
HLESource 46%21.4%Inkling leads
HLE w/o toolsSource 30%Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 85.2%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 64.7%Not comparable
C-EvalSource 90%Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 31.6%Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.1%Not comparable
AA-HLESource 20.2%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -21.4%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 18.9%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 49.7%Not comparable
MathInkling wins
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
AIME26Source 97.1%92.7%Inkling leads
HMMT Feb 2025Source 90.7%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source 89.1%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 83.6%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 78.9%Not comparable
MultimodalInkling wins
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
MMMU-ProSource 73.5%75.3%Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
CharXivSource 82%78%Inkling leads
CharXiv w/o toolsSource 78.1%Not comparable
MMMUSource 81.7%Not comparable
RealWorldQASource 85.3%Not comparable
OmniDocBench 1.5Source 89.9%Not comparable
SimpleVQASource 58.9%Not comparable
CC-OCRSource 81.9%Not comparable
AI2D_TESTSource 92.7%Not comparable
RefCOCO (avg)Source 92.0%Not comparable
ODINW13Source 50.8%Not comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)Source 86.6%Not comparable
Video-MME (w/o subtitle)Source 82.5%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource 83.7%Not comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)Source 86.2%Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 75.0%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkInklingQwen3.6-35B-A3BResult
IFBenchSource 79.8%Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource 64.4%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (6)

Which is better, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Inkling is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 69 to 59. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HLE, where the scores are 46% and 21.4%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 51.8 versus 51.7. Inside this category, HLE is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 68.6. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Inkling has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 97.1 versus 88.2. Inside this category, AIME26 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Inkling has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 versus 51.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Inkling or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Inkling has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 76.5 versus 76.3. Inside this category, CharXiv is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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Last updated: July 15, 2026

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