Model comparison
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 51.3 to 22.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 3.9% for Mistral Small 3.1 and 86.7% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.49 for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
- Qwen3.6 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.7 | 37.6 |
| Released | 2025-03-17 | 2026-04-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 102K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.35 | $0.25 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.56 | $1.49 |
| Results tracked | 28 | 14 |
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Category by category
Coding Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 35.8% |
| WeirdML | — | 34.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: —, Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 23% |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | 26% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | 143.93 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 41.6% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 22% |
| DTBench | — | 73.9% |
| LMCA | — | 29.7% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 44.4% |
Math Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | 86.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 20.4% |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1262 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | 84.8% |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1257 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1253 | — |
| LMArena French | 1273 | — |
| LMArena German | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1208 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 75% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1299 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.6 35B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1277 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $1.49.
Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?
Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.3 versus 37.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.