Noometry

Model comparison

Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.6 Flash

Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 Flash Alibaba (Qwen)

38.8

Rank #182 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Flash in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Flash leads 39.0 to 16.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 84.4% for Qwen3.6 Flash.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.19 / $1.13 for Qwen3.6 Flash.
  • Qwen3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
ProviderMistral AIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.238.8
Released2025-01-302026-04-27
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window33K1M
Max output16K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.19
Output $ / M tokens$0.08$1.13
Results tracked2413

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
BigCodeBench Instruct45.3%—
LMArena Coding1246—
BigCodeBench Complete50.4%—
ALE-Bench—326.4

Reasoning Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3.6 Flash: 29.0 (#96)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
Chess Puzzles0%20%
Epoch Capabilities Index127.07143.26
SimpleBench—35.2%
LMArena Hard Prompts1233—
Mystery Game Puzzles—18%
DTBench—77.1%
LMCA—31%

Math Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3.6 Flash: 39.0 (#117)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20256.7%84.4%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—22.5%
LMArena Math1240—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—10.3%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Qwen3.6 Flash leads

Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3.6 Flash: 42.1 (#100)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
GPQA Diamond47.3%83.3%
SimpleQA Verified—15.9%
Confabulations25.2%—
LMArena Expert1202—

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Non-English1198—
LMArena Chinese1204—
LMArena French1203—
LMArena German1211—
LMArena Japanese1111—
LMArena Korean1188—
LMArena Russian1216—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Instruction Following1214—

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Longer Query1246—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3.6 Flash: —

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.6 Flash
LMArena Text1234—
LMArena Creative Writing1195—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing707—
LMArena Multi-Turn1217—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.6 Flash?

Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 Flash?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Flash lists at $0.19 and $1.13.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 Flash does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.6 Flash share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Flash has 13.

Related comparisons

Go deeper