Model comparison
Ministral 3B vs Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 4.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash'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. Ministral 3B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 43.2 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 25.3% for Ministral 3B and 82.3% for Qwen3.5-Flash.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.04 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.40 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
- Qwen3.5-Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Ministral 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.6 | 42.3 |
| Released | 2024-10-01 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 1M |
| Max output | 128K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.04 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.04 | $0.40 |
| Results tracked | 6 | 32 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.9 (#234)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1243 |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1412 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 221.8 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: —
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Ministral 3B: 17.7 (#278), Qwen3.5-Flash: 32.9 (#63)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 51.7% | 82.9% |
| LMCA | 5.5% | 29.1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 118.08 | 143.98 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1404 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
Math Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Ministral 3B: 24.5 (#257), Qwen3.5-Flash: 36.3 (#117)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1407 |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.4% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-Flash leads
Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#297), Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#84)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 25.3% | 82.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.3% | 10.5% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1408 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.7 (#116)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1446 |
| LMArena French | — | 1412 |
| LMArena German | — | 1389 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1369 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1344 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1379 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1399 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.8 (#133)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1374 |
Long Context Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#119)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1392 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Ministral 3B: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 58.2 (#117)
| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1393 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Ministral 3B better than Qwen3.5-Flash?
Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 3B costs 4.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.04 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-Flash lists at $0.10 and $0.40.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Ministral 3B and Qwen3.5-Flash share?
5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 3B has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.