Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.5 27B
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 27B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 59.3 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 27B.
- Qwen3.5 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 41.9 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 33K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1427 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1358 |
| WeirdML | — | 39.5% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 349.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.5 27B: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 201.98 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1414 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 47.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 45.5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.4% |
| LMCA | — | 34% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | — |
Math Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1429 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 56.7% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1428 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 12.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1241 |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1390 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1410 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1393 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1345 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1358 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1390 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1407 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1393 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1413 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.5 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1409 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1362 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1410 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.5 27B?
Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 14× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.5 27B?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 27B lists at $0.30 and $2.40.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.5 27B better for coding?
Qwen3.5 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 27B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.5 27B share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 27B has 28.