Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 51.8 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 93.3% for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.6 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 | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 47.5 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 33K | 1M |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1449 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | 147.65 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 93.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 88.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1454 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1477 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1455 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1425 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1439 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1404 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1438 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.