Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) 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
Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) scores 8.9 points higher (18.2 vs 9.3) but costs 19× as much to run the benchmark ($896 vs $46.4; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 18.2 | +95.7% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 95.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $46.41 | $896.39 | +1831.5% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 19× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 7.23s | 47.02s | +550.3% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 550.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $0.38 / $2.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Large 3: 95.7% more intelligence, 1831.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 550.3% 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.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-6-35b-a3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-6-35b-a3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill