Model comparison
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 18× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 5 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 Max in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 26.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max 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 | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-06-20 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 256K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.0938 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.25 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 6 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | 72.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | 4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 131.74 | 142.38 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30.3% | 73.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1446 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 49.1% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1455 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1478 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1419 |
Long Context Not comparable
Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1438 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1402 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1255 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1446 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 18× 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 3.2 or Qwen3 Max?
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 256K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3 Max share?
5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.