Model comparison
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 6.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max'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 0 categories and Qwen3 Max in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 22.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 3.9% for Mistral Small 3.1 and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Mistral Small 3.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.7 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-03-17 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 102K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.35 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.56 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 28 | 33 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | 1448 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | 142.38 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | 72.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1257 | 1455 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |
Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1253 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1273 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1266 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1208 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | 1462 |
Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | 1419 |
| IFEval | 75% | — |
Long Context Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1299 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1277 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 6.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3 Max?
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 38.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Qwen3 Max share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.