Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 51× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 54.1 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.30 / $7.80 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 51.5 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2026-04-20 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 33K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $1.30 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $7.80 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 29 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1471 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1457 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | 149.24 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |
Math Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 87.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1478 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1487 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1445 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1454 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1438 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1457 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1435 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1456 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 51.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 51× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 48.7 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.