Ministral 3 8B vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Ministral 3 8B by Mistral or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next scores 34.3 points higher (39.8 vs 5.5) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $27.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when you need intelligence above 5.5, and Ministral 3 8B when 5.5 is enough.
| Metric | Ministral 3 8B | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 5.5 | 39.8 | +623.6% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 7.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.47 | $362.72 | +1220.4% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 13× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.26s | 50.19s | +854.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 854.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.15 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Ministral 3 8B: 623.6% more intelligence, 1220.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 854.2% 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.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Ministral 3 8BQwen3.8-Flash-NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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