Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.1 to 30.8 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 22× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 4 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

30.8

Rank #271 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Alibaba (Qwen)

51.1

Rank #36 Confirmed

Summary

They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 57.6 to 26.8.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.
Mistral Small 3.2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview specifications
	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	30.8	51.1
Released	2025-06-20	2026-04-20
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	256K	262K
Max output	16K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.0938	$1.30
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$7.80
Results tracked	6	29

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.6 (#50)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
SWE-bench Verified	—	76.7%
LMArena WebDev	—	1482
LMArena Coding	—	1472

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Vending-Bench 2	—	4,254

Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 17.5 (#282), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 40.8 (#47)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Chess Puzzles	1%	20%
Epoch Capabilities Index	131.73	149.27
SimpleBench	—	63%
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	—	74.1%
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1457
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	19%
DTBench	—	87.2%
LMCA	—	42.5%

Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 24.9 (#251), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 52.2 (#40)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	30.3%	91.1%
LMArena Math	—	1465
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	23.1%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	4.2%

Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.8 (#249), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#35)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
GPQA Diamond	49.1%	87.4%
SimpleQA Verified	—	52%
LMArena Expert	—	1476

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.3 (#46)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Non-English	—	1436
LMArena Chinese	—	1487
LMArena French	—	1449
LMArena Russian	—	1444
LMArena Spanish	—	1452

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.8 (#51)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1437

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#59)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Longer Query	—	1457

Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 45.1 (#219), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 64.0 (#58)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.6 Max Preview
LMArena Text	—	1447
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1435
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1255	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1456

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.