Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Large 3 by Mistral or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-19.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 Coder Next scores 5.4 points higher (21.3 vs 15.9) but costs 3.5× as much to run the benchmark ($250 vs $71.1; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 Coder Next when you need intelligence above 15.9, and Mistral Large 3 when 15.9 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Large 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.9 | 21.3 | +34.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 34.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $71.14 | $250.18 | +251.7% Qwen3 Coder Next is 3.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.57s | 4.97s | −57.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 57.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.50 / $1.50 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Large 3: 34.0% more intelligence, 251.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 57.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (high) scores 47.00 for $55.0.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Mistral Large 3Qwen3 Coder NextToday'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-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-large-3/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill