Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) scores 1.9 points higher (11.2 vs 9.3) but costs 7.1× as much to run the benchmark ($329 vs $46.4; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 11.2 | +20.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 20.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $328.86 | +608.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 7.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.23s | 43.21s | +497.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 497.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Large 3: 20.4% more intelligence, 608.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 497.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3.5 9B (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/mistral-large-3/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill