Model comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.8 Max

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.2 costs 23× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 4 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3.2

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #280 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 Max

Alibaba (Qwen)

56.8

Rank #22 Confirmed

Summary

They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 26.3.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2 and 100% for Qwen3.8 Max.
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.0938 / $0.25 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 256K.
Mistral Small 3.2 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3.8 Max specifications
	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
Provider	Mistral AI	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	31.2	56.8
Released	2025-06-20	2026-08-02
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	256K	1M
Max output	16K	131K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.0938	$2
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$6
Results tracked	6	39

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
DeepSWE	—	57.5%
LMArena WebDev	—	1674
FrontierSWE	—	17.8%
SciCode	—	53.2%
LMArena Coding	—	1502

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
APEX-Agents	—	63.3%
τ²-bench Banking	—	55.1%
GDP.pdf	—	23.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 18.1 (#287), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
Chess Puzzles	1%	40%
Epoch Capabilities Index	131.74	156.41
Kagi LLM Benchmark	40.4%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	—	88.3%
CritPt	—	20%
LMArena Hard Prompts	—	1496
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	38%
DTBench	—	92%
LMCA	—	46.2%

Math Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.3 (#260), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	30.3%	100%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	—	74.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4	—	46.3%
ProofBench	—	58%
LMArena Math	—	1499

Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 26.7 (#256), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
GPQA Diamond	49.1%	92.7%
SimpleQA Verified	—	47.3%
LMArena Expert	—	1507

Multimodal Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Vision	—	1314
Furniture Assembly	—	20%

Multilingual Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Non-English	—	1472
LMArena Chinese	—	1538
LMArena French	—	1503
LMArena German	—	1483
LMArena Japanese	—	1467
LMArena Korean	—	1461
LMArena Russian	—	1481
LMArena Spanish	—	1492

Instruction Following Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Instruction Following	—	1479

Long Context Not comparable

Mistral Small 3.2: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Longer Query	—	1489

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3.2: 45.0 (#224), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Small 3.2	Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Text	—	1483
LMArena Creative Writing	—	1479
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1255	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	—	1489

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3.2 better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2 or Qwen3.8 Max?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper. It lists at $0.0938 per million input tokens and $0.25 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3.8 Max share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.2 has 6 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.