Model comparison

Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next

Qwen3 Coder Next is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.3 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Coder Next's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 0 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Qwen3 Coder Next

Alibaba (Qwen)

34.3

Rank #232 Reported

Summary

The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3 Coder Next leads 22.4 to 18.9.
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.12 / $0.80 for Qwen3 Coder Next.
Qwen3 Coder Next accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3 Coder Next specifications
	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	31.2	34.3
Released	2025-01-30	2026-02-02
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	33K	262K
Max output	16K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.05	$0.12
Output $ / M tokens	$0.08	$0.80
Results tracked	24	3

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3 Coder Next: 36.3 (#210)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
SciCode	—	32.3%
WeirdML	—	34.4%
BigCodeBench Instruct	45.3%	—
LMArena Coding	1246	—
BigCodeBench Complete	50.4%	—

Reasoning Qwen3 Coder Next leads

Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3 Coder Next: 22.4 (#196)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1233	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	127.07	—

Math Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	6.7%	—
LMArena Math	1240	—

Knowledge Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
GPQA Diamond	47.3%	—
Confabulations	25.2%	—
LMArena Expert	1202	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Non-English	1198	—
LMArena Chinese	1204	—
LMArena French	1203	—
LMArena German	1211	—
LMArena Japanese	1111	—
LMArena Korean	1188	—
LMArena Russian	1216	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Instruction Following	1214	—

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Longer Query	1246	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3 Coder Next: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3	Qwen3 Coder Next
LMArena Text	1234	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1195	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	707	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1217	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3 Coder Next?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder Next lists at $0.12 and $0.80.

Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (36.5 vs 36.3); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3 Coder Next does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3 Coder Next share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Coder Next has 3.