# Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 costs 22× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Max Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-2-vs-qwen3-6-max-preview
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Max Preview in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Max Preview leads 57.6 to 26.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 Max Preview.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 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 256K.
- Mistral Small 3.2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 51.5 |
| Rank | 280 | 43 |
| Context | 256K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.0938 | $1.30 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $7.80 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3.2: —
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 48.7 (#54)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 76.7% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1482 |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1471 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Small 3.2: —
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 4,254 |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 41.7 (#53)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | 20% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 131.74 | 149.24 |
| SimpleBench | — | 63% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 74.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1457 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 19% |
| DTBench | — | 87.2% |
| LMCA | — | 42.5% |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.1 (#46)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30.3% | 91.1% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1465 |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 23.1% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 57.6 (#39)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 49.1% | 87.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 52% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1478 |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3.2: —
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 54.2 (#48)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1437 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1487 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1445 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1454 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3.2: —
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 75.7 (#55)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1438 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3.2: —
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 44.6 (#61)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1457 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224)
- Qwen3.6 Max Preview: 63.8 (#60)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.6 Max Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1447 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1435 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1255 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1456 |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 costs 22× 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 3.2 or Qwen3.6 Max Preview?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Max Preview lists at $1.30 and $7.80.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Max Preview has 29.