Model comparison
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads 39.9 to 14.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 3.9% for Mistral Small 3.1 and 70% for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $2 for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
- Qwen3.5 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.7 | 42.0 |
| Released | 2025-03-17 | 2026-02-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 102K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.35 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.56 | $2 |
| Results tracked | 28 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | 1410 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1254 |
| SciCode | — | 29.3% |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | 10% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | 1400 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | 142.52 |
| CritPt | — | 0.6% |
| DTBench | — | 80% |
| LMCA | — | 29.5% |
Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | 70% |
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1404 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56% |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | 83.5% |
| LMArena Expert | 1257 | 1408 |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | 1378 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1253 | 1457 |
| LMArena French | 1273 | 1412 |
| LMArena German | 1266 | 1367 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1208 | 1325 |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | 1356 |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | 1376 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | 1392 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | 1379 |
| IFEval | 75% | — |
Long Context Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1299 | 1389 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.5 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1277 | 1395 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | 1346 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | 1390 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 1.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $2.
Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?
Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.3 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.