# Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.6 27B

> Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-vs-qwen3-6-27b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 27B in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 27B leads 48.5 to 16.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 91.1% for Qwen3.6 27B.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.6 27B.
- Qwen3.6 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 42.2 |
| Rank | 278 | 117 |
| Context | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.60 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $3.60 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 39.1 (#163)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 37.3% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 25.0 (#153)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 22% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | 146.5 |
| CritPt | — | 0.9% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| DTBench | — | 78.1% |
| LMCA | — | 34.5% |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 48.5 (#62)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 91.1% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 35.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 52.4 (#63)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 85.9% |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | — |
| LMArena French | 1203 | — |
| LMArena German | 1211 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
- Qwen3.6 27B: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
- Qwen3.6 27B: 50.3 (#181)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 1026 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.2 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 27B?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

### Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.6 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.1 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 27B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.6 27B share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 27B has 11.