# Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

> Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-vs-qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 55.5 to 32.4.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.9 | 37.7 |
| Rank | 268 | 186 |
| Context | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | 1413 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Mistral Small 3: —
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.06 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1240 | 1364 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | 1337 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1198 | 1345 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1204 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1202 | 1394 |
| LMArena German | 1211 | 1324 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1309 |
| LMArena Korean | 1188 | 1307 |
| LMArena Russian | 1216 | 1367 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | 1356 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | 1379 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1234 | 1356 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1195 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1217 | 1365 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 707 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (36.0 vs 36.2); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.