# Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next

> Qwen3 Coder Next is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.3 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Coder Next's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-vs-qwen3-coder-next
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3 Coder Next leads 22.4 to 18.9.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.12 / $0.80 for Qwen3 Coder Next.
- Qwen3 Coder Next accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 31.2 | 34.3 |
| Rank | 278 | 232 |
| Context | 33K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.12 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $0.80 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: 36.3 (#210)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 32.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 34.4% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 45.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1246 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 50.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: 22.4 (#196)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1233 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.07 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 6.7% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1240 | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 25.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1202 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Coder Next: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1214 | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1246 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
- Qwen3 Coder Next: —

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

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3 Coder Next?

Qwen3 Coder Next is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.3 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Coder Next's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder Next lists at $0.12 and $0.80.

### Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (36.5 vs 36.3); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3 Coder Next does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3 Coder Next share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Coder Next has 3.