Ministral 3 8B vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-27.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) scores 7.2 points higher (12.7 vs 5.5) but costs 8.5× as much to run the benchmark ($234 vs $27.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 12.7 | +130.9% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $233.56 | +750.2% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 8.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.23s | 21.63s | +247.2% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 247.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs Ministral 3 8B: 130.9% more intelligence, 750.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 247.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Ministral 3 8BQwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-8b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ministral-3-8b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill