Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct'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 1 category and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 55.3 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 38.1 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 33K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Mistral Small 3 leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
Reasoning Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | — |
Math Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1365 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1357 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1398 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1325 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1305 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1366 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |
Instruction Following Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1355 |
Long Context Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1378 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1365 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.