Model comparison
Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 42× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max'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 Max in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 Max leads 62.4 to 32.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 73.3% for Qwen3 Max.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max 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 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-01-30 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 33K | 262K |
| Max output | 16K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 24 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1456 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 4% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1448 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | 142.38 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| DTBench | — | 82.1% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 73.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 72.6% |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1455 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |
Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1419 |
Long Context Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 42× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Max?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3 Max share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.