Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen Plus
Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen Plus leads 52.4 to 32.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 17.8% for Qwen Plus.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.20 for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.9 | 36.7 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2024-01-25 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 33K | 1M |
| Max output | 16K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $1.20 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 20 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203), Qwen Plus: 38.3 (#163)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1328 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
Reasoning Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269), Qwen Plus: 27.6 (#101)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1317 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 63.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | — | 81.1% |
| LMCA | — | 24% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.06 | — |
Math Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290), Qwen Plus: 22.0 (#266)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 17.8% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1326 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 65.3% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 1.7% |
Knowledge Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258), Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 48.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1328 |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
Multilingual Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231), Qwen Plus: 45.3 (#170)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1310 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1347 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1251 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1323 |
| LMArena French | 1202 | — |
| LMArena German | 1211 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224), Qwen Plus: 69.0 (#176)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1303 |
Long Context Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206), Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#153)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1325 |
Writing & Preference Qwen Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275), Qwen Plus: 52.4 (#171)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1326 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1293 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1336 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen Plus?
Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen Plus?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen Plus lists at $0.40 and $1.20.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen Plus better for coding?
Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.3 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen Plus share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Plus has 20.