Noometry

Model comparison

Mistral Small 3 vs Qwen Max

Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.4 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 49× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

30.9

Rank #268 Confirmed

Qwen Max Alibaba (Qwen)

34.4

Rank #226 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen Max in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen Max leads 48.0 to 32.4.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 16.1% for Qwen Max.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3Qwen Max
ProviderMistral AIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index30.934.4
Released2025-01-302024-04-03
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window33K33K
Max output16K8K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$1.60
Output $ / M tokens$0.08$6.40
Results tracked2423

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Small 3 leads

Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#288)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Coding12461288
Aider Polyglot—21.8%
BigCodeBench Instruct45.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete50.4%—

Reasoning Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269), Qwen Max: 24.1 (#154)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Hard Prompts12331270
Chess Puzzles0%—
Epoch Capabilities Index127.06—

Math Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290), Qwen Max: 21.0 (#272)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20256.7%16.1%
LMArena Math12401275
MATH Level 5—67.2%
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—1%

Knowledge Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258), Qwen Max: 30.3 (#222)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
GPQA Diamond47.3%56.1%
LMArena Expert12021248
Confabulations25.2%—

Multilingual Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231), Qwen Max: 42.0 (#197)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Non-English11981263
LMArena Chinese12041254
LMArena French12021329
LMArena German12111254
LMArena Japanese11111205
LMArena Korean11881141
LMArena Russian12161274
LMArena Spanish—1290

Instruction Following Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224), Qwen Max: 66.7 (#203)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Instruction Following12141262

Long Context Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206), Qwen Max: 39.4 (#175)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Longer Query12461289
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%

Writing & Preference Qwen Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275), Qwen Max: 48.0 (#200)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen Max
LMArena Text12341282
LMArena Creative Writing11951248
LMArena Multi-Turn12171277
EQ-Bench Creative Writing707—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen Max?

Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.4 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 49× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen Max?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen Max better for coding?

Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.0 versus 30.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 33K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen Max share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen Max has 23.

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