Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen Max

Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 21× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 2 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Qwen Max

Alibaba (Qwen)

34.7

Rank #230 Confirmed

Summary

They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen Max in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen Max leads 25.1 to 18.1.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 16.1% for Qwen Max.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
Mistral Small 3.2 accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 33K.
Mistral Small 3.2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen Max specifications
	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	31.2	34.7
Released	2025-06-20	2024-04-03
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	256K	33K
Max output	16K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.0938	$1.60
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$6.40
Results tracked	6	23

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
Aider Polyglot	—	21.8%
LMArena Coding	—	1288

Reasoning Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287), Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	—
Chess Puzzles	1%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1269
Epoch Capabilities Index	131.74	—

Math Mistral Small 3.2 leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260), Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	30.3%	16.1%
LMArena Math	—	1275
MATH Level 5	—	67.2%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	1%

Knowledge Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
GPQA Diamond	49.1%	56.1%
LMArena Expert	—	1248

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
LMArena Non-English	—	1263
LMArena Chinese	—	1254
LMArena French	—	1330
LMArena German	—	1254
LMArena Japanese	—	1205
LMArena Korean	—	1142
LMArena Russian	—	1274
LMArena Spanish	—	1290

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1262

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
Fiction.LiveBench	—	66.7%
LMArena Longer Query	—	1288

Writing & Preference Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224), Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen Max
LMArena Text	—	1282
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1248
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1255	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1277

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen Max?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2 or Qwen Max?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small 3.2 does, with 256K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen Max share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.