Model comparison
Magistral Small vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 5 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 41.7 to 6.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30% for Magistral Small and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1471 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | 20% |
| DTBench | 61.3% | 87.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 149.24 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1478 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1487 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1454 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1438 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1456 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is Magistral Small or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.