Model comparison
Ministral 3B vs Qwen Max
Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 3B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen Max in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen Max leads 30.3 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is MATH Level 5: 14.4% for Ministral 3B and 67.2% for Qwen Max.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
- Ministral 3B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.
- Ministral 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Ministral 3B | Qwen Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 26.2 | 34.7 |
| Released | 2024-10-01 | 2024-04-03 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 33K |
| Max output | 262K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $1.60 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.10 | $6.40 |
| Results tracked | 6 | 23 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | — | 21.8% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1288 |
Reasoning Qwen Max leads
Ministral 3B: 18.4 (#282), Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1269 |
| DTBench | 51.7% | — |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 118.1 | — |
Math Ministral 3B leads
Ministral 3B: 26.6 (#258), Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| MATH Level 5 | 14.4% | 67.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 16.1% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1275 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1% |
Knowledge Qwen Max leads
Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#302), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 25.3% | 56.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1248 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1263 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1254 |
| LMArena French | — | 1330 |
| LMArena German | — | 1254 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1205 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1142 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1274 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1290 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1262 |
Long Context Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1288 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1282 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1248 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1277 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Ministral 3B better than Qwen Max?
Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 26.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 28× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B or Qwen Max?
Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.
Which has the bigger context window?
Ministral 3B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Ministral 3B and Qwen Max share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 3B has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.