Noometry

Model comparison

Mistral Small 3 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 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

56.8

Rank #22 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 16.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 6.7% for Mistral Small 3 and 100% for Qwen3.8 Max.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
  • Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Mistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
ProviderMistral AIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index31.256.8
Released2025-01-302026-08-02
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window33K1M
Max output16K131K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$2
Output $ / M tokens$0.08$6
Results tracked2439

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Coding12461502
DeepSWE—57.5%
LMArena WebDev—1674
FrontierSWE—17.8%
SciCode—53.2%
BigCodeBench Instruct45.3%—
BigCodeBench Complete50.4%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
APEX-Agents—63.3%
τ²-bench Banking—55.1%
GDP.pdf—23.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
Chess Puzzles0%40%
LMArena Hard Prompts12331496
Epoch Capabilities Index127.07156.41
NYT Connections (extended)—88.3%
CritPt—20%
Mystery Game Puzzles—38%
DTBench—92%
LMCA—46.2%

Math Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20256.7%100%
LMArena Math12401499
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—74.7%
FrontierMath Tier 4—46.3%
ProofBench—58%

Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
GPQA Diamond47.3%92.7%
LMArena Expert12021507
SimpleQA Verified—47.3%
Confabulations25.2%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Mistral Small 3: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Vision—1314
Furniture Assembly—20%

Multilingual Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Non-English11981472
LMArena Chinese12041538
LMArena French12031503
LMArena German12111483
LMArena Japanese11111467
LMArena Korean11881461
LMArena Russian12161481
LMArena Spanish—1492

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Instruction Following12141479

Long Context Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Longer Query12461489

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads

Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

BenchmarkMistral Small 3Qwen3.8 Max
LMArena Text12341483
LMArena Creative Writing11951479
LMArena Multi-Turn12171489
EQ-Bench Creative Writing707—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Small 3 better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 52× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.8 Max?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.

Is Mistral Small 3 or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?

Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3 and Qwen3.8 Max share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3 has 24 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.

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