Qwen3.5 397B A17B vs Inkling
Updated October 21, 2026. 51 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Inkling for coding: it scores 49.7 on the Vibe Coding Index against 28.6 for Qwen3.5 397B A17B.
Pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B when output tokens cost 1.7x less, or when what matters is LMArena WebDev: HTML or GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 51
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B only
- 14
- Inkling only
- 51
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Inkling
Inkling scores 49.7 against 28.6.
1 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Inkling
Inkling leads, 25.0 against 21.4.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Inkling has a AA Agentic Index result, 22.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Inkling has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.1%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Inkling has a MMLU Pro result, 86.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Inkling
Inkling leads, 1224 against 1191.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Inkling has a Vals Index result, 29.0%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Inkling
Inkling takes 524K tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Qwen3.5 397B A17B $0.0016, Inkling $0.0030 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Inkling has the number, $0.76.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B 28.6 from 1 benchmark, Inkling 49.7 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 8.9 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Qwen3.5 397B A17B 621.9 against Inkling 946.0, 10.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B $2.34 against Inkling $4.05 per million output tokens, 1.7x apart.
- Context window
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B takes 262K tokens, Inkling 524K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Bars | Inkling | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 6 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 4 | ||
| Math | 0 | 3 | 1 tie | |
| Knowledge | 2 | 2 | ||
| Web design | 2 | 4 | 1 tie | |
| General | 10 | 8 | 2 ties | |
| All shared boards | 17 | 30 | 4 ties |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index16
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1400 | 1414 | Inkling |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 52.1 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 19.2% | Only Inkling measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 26.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 66.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| SciCode | 44.8% | 47.0% | Inkling |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| FrontierCode | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 4.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 32.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| ALE-Bench | 621.9 | 946.0 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1464 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1463 | 1465 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1388 | 1404 | Inkling |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1410 | 1399 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 21.4 | 25.0 | Inkling |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.8 | 148.4 | Inkling |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 22.5 | Only Inkling measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1196 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 59.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 16.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 14.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 46.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 28.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 3.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| APEX-Agents | 24.9% | 33.8% | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index24
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 87.1% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 78.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.3% | 87.2% | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 29.0% | 31.9% | Inkling |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 86.4% | 88.3% | Inkling |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 79.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 36.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 50.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 21.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 18.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1448 | 1451 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1462 | 1466 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1450 | 1448 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1277 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1292 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 88.9% | 88.9% | Tie |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 31.2% | 33.3% | Inkling |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Inkling measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1453 | 1479 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1454 | 1460 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index22
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 86.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.6% | Only Inkling measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 75.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 41.2% | Only Inkling measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 40.3% | Only Inkling measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1457 | 1455 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1455 | 1447 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1441 | 1448 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1435 | 1438 | Inkling |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index24
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1191 | 1224 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1163 | 1200 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1141 | 1166 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1175 | 1160 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1161 | 1161 | Tie |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1180 | 1206 | Inkling |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1139 | 1109 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1089 | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 58.3% | Only Inkling measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index108
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 29.0% | Only Inkling measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 72.8% | Only Inkling measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 36.5% | Only Inkling measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Inkling measured |
| IFBench | 78.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 77.3% | 77.3% | Tie |
| DTBench | 87.5% | 87.5% | Tie |
| LMCA | 37.9% | 37.6% | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text | 1437 | 1442 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1424 | 1425 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1402 | 1390 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Vision | 1262 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1443 | 1442 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1430 | 1434 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1498 | 1493 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: German | 1445 | 1445 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1429 | 1429 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1384 | 1403 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: French | 1462 | 1455 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1441 | 1449 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1430 | 1430 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1447 | 1450 | Inkling |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1446 | 1437 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1441 | 1435 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1415 | 1404 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1399 | 1394 | Qwen3.5 397B A17B |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1268 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1314 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1271 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1262 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1230 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1265 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1260 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5 397B A17B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Inkling | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Qwen3.5 397B A17B | Thinking Machines Inkling |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Thinking Machines |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | February 16, 2026 | July 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 524K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.39 | $1.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.34 | $4.05 |
| Coding index | 28.6 | 49.7 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.76 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.5 397B A17B better than Inkling for coding?
Pick Inkling for coding: it scores 49.7 on the Vibe Coding Index against 28.6 for Qwen3.5 397B A17B. Pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B when output tokens cost 1.7x less, or when what matters is LMArena WebDev: HTML or GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 397B A17B or Inkling?
Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs $0.39 per million input tokens and $2.34 per million output tokens; Inkling costs $1.00 and $4.05. Cost per solved task is known for Inkling only.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5 397B A17B or Inkling?
Inkling, with 524K tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.5 397B A17B vs Inkling comparison based on?
51 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Qwen3.5 397B A17B's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Inkling's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.