Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 4 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 26.7.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
Mistral Small 3.2 accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3 8B specifications
	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	31.2	33.7
Released	2025-06-20	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	256K	131K
Max output	16K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.0938	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.70
Results tracked	6	11

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	—	22.6%

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	42.6%

Reasoning Mistral Small 3.2 leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
Chess Puzzles	1%	5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	131.74	136.17
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	—
CritPt	—	0%
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%

Math Qwen3 8B leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	30.3%	56.1%

Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	49.1%	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3 8B
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1255	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2 or Qwen3 8B?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small 3.2 does, with 256K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3 8B share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.