# Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.6 Flash

> Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-vs-qwen3-6-flash
- 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 Flash in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.6 Flash leads 38.0 to 15.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 84.4% for Qwen3.6 Flash.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.19 / $1.13 for Qwen3.6 Flash.
- Qwen3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.9 | 38.4 |
| Rank | 268 | 176 |
| Context | 33K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.19 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $1.13 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 326.4 |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: 28.4 (#90)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 20% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.06 | 143.26 |
| SimpleBench | — | 35.2% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 18% |
| DTBench | — | 77.1% |
| LMCA | — | 31% |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: 38.0 (#88)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | 84.4% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 22.5% |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 10.3% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: 42.2 (#90)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | 83.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.9% |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.6 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | — |
| LMArena French | 1202 | — |
| LMArena German | 1211 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: —

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

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: —

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

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)
- Qwen3.6 Flash: —

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

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.6 Flash?

Qwen3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.4 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

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

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Flash lists at $0.19 and $1.13.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.6 Flash does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

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

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Flash has 13.