Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 11, 2026. 1 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

Alibaba (Qwen)

38.1

Rank #190 Confirmed

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 37.6 to 26.3.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 40.4% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct specifications
	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	31.2	38.1
Released	2025-06-20	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	256K	262K
Max output	16K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.0938	$1.50
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$7.50
Results tracked	6	25

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)	—	55.4%
LMArena WebDev	—	1275
GSO	—	4.9%
WeirdML	—	41.2%
LMArena Coding	—	1412
ALE-Bench	—	461.45
AlgoTune	—	1.44

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Terminal-Bench	—	27.2%

Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	49.5%
Chess Puzzles	1%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1372
Epoch Capabilities Index	131.74	—

Math Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	30.3%	—
LMArena Math	—	1365

Knowledge Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
GPQA Diamond	49.1%	—
LMArena Expert	—	1338

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Non-English	—	1346
LMArena Chinese	—	1357
LMArena French	—	1398
LMArena German	—	1325
LMArena Japanese	—	1310
LMArena Korean	—	1305
LMArena Russian	—	1366
LMArena Spanish	—	1360

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1355

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query	—	1378

Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Text	—	1357
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1333
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1255	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1365

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.