# Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3.8 27B

> Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-vs-qwen3-8-27b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 65.8 to 32.2.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.04 / $2.30 for Qwen3.8 27B.
- Qwen3.8 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 46.0 |
| Rank | 278 | 68 |
| Context | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.04 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $2.30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 50.5 (#44)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1482 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1593 |
| SciCode | — | 46.6% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Small 3: —
- Qwen3.8 27B: 32.9 (#57)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 47.5% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.0 (#54)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1460 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | 149.38 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 42.4% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 54.5% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 87.5% |
| CritPt | — | 5.4% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| DTBench | — | 88% |
| LMCA | — | 41.4% |
| Surface Evolver Bench | — | 45% |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 37.1 (#161)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1456 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |
| ProofBench | — | 16% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.6 (#109)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1482 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Small 3: —
- Qwen3.8 27B: 41.3 (#37)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1271 |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 53.7 (#60)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1430 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1504 |
| LMArena French | 1203 | 1465 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1438 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1384 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1393 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1415 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1448 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#53)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1439 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#70)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1450 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
- Qwen3.8 27B: 65.8 (#43)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1441 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1384 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | 1671 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1441 |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.8 27B?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 27B lists at $0.04 and $2.30.

### Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 27B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.8 27B share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 31.