Model comparison

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.5-9B

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 12, 2026. 1 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

40.2

Rank #152 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 40.0.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.

Side by side

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	40.2	33.8
Released	—	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	262K	262K
Max output	210K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$7.50	$0.15
Results tracked	22	10

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena WebDev	1264	—
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1461	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
Epoch Capabilities Index	141.35	139.46
Kagi LLM Benchmark	41.4%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	12.9%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	—	12%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1436	—
DTBench	—	71.2%
LMCA	—	24.5%

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	61.7%
LMArena Math	1431	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	—	79%
LMArena Expert	1432	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Vision	1223	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1404	—
LMArena Chinese	1442	—
LMArena French	1448	—
LMArena German	1451	—
LMArena Korean	1385	—
LMArena Russian	1395	—
LMArena Spanish	1409	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1415	—

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1415	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1421	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1374	—
EQ-Bench 4	993	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1423	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (36.0 vs 35.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3.5-9B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.