# Inkling-Small vs Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Inkling-Small and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/inkling-small-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview
- Last updated: September 10, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5

## Quick Verdict

Pick Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Inkling-Small only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) leads overall 63.7 to 59.25.
- The clearest category separation is in mathematics, where the averages are 76.9 for Inkling-Small and 41.4 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SciCode in Coding, with scores of 48.7% and 47%.
- Inkling-Small also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Thinking Machines Lab | Alibaba |
| Type | Open Weight | Proprietary |
| Reasoning | Hybrid | Reasoning |
| Context | 1M | 256K |
| Overall Score | 59.25 | 63.7 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 25 | 9 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.58 / $1.44 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 36.9 (Supported · #128/152)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 59.7 (Estimated · #22/152)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 64.7% | 65.4% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
| BrowseComp | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | 79.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Toolathlon-Verified | 54.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 55.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| QwenClawBench | Coming soon | 59.0% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 43.8 (Supported · #97/151)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 57.6 (Estimated · #32/151)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 80.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Pro | 55.9% | 57.3% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 64.7% | 65.4% | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) |
| SciCode | 48.7% | 47% | Inkling-Small |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 85.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| NL2Repo | Coming soon | 42.9% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 48.8 (#39/48)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMMU-Pro | 74% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | 81.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CharXiv w/o tools | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 42.7 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 40.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CritPt | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 56.5 (Supported · #46/183)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 60.2 (Estimated · #37/183)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | 89.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE | 47.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | 31.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 83.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SuperGPQA | Coming soon | 73.9% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 89.6 (#25/123)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 82.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Coming soon
- Inkling-Small public-lane score: 76.9 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) public-lane score: 41.4 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | Inkling-Small | Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME26 | 95.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 90.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | Coming soon | 23.103% | Coming soon |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | Coming soon | 4.167% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Inkling-Small or Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Inkling-Small and Qwen 3.6 Max (preview)?

The widest category gap is in mathematics, where the averages are 76.9 for Inkling-Small and 41.4 for Qwen 3.6 Max (preview).

### How many benchmarks does Inkling-Small cover on BenchLM?

Inkling-Small currently has 25 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) cover on BenchLM?

Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) currently has 9 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Inkling-Small vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-inkling-small)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs Inkling](/compare/inkling-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)
- [Inkling-Small vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-inkling-small)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) vs Claude Fable 5.1](/compare/claude-fable-5-1-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview)

## Explore More

- [Inkling-Small profile](/models/inkling-small)
- [Qwen 3.6 Max (preview) profile](/models/qwen3-6-max-preview)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)