Model comparison
Magistral Small vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 Max in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 30.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 6.3% for Magistral Small and 72.5% for Qwen3 Max.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 33 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | 72.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | 4% |
| DTBench | 61.3% | 82.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 142.38 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | 73.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1446 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1455 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1478 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1419 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1438 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1446 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Qwen3 Max?
Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Magistral Small or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Qwen3 Max share?
6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.