Mistral Medium 3.1 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Medium 3.1 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 6.6 points higher (21.3 vs 14.7) but costs 1.9× as much to run the benchmark ($250 vs $134; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3 Coder Next when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Medium 3.1.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.7 | 21.3 | +44.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 44.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $133.77 | $250.18 | +87.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 87.0% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.17s | 4.97s | −19.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 19.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.40 / $2.00 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Medium 3.1: 44.9% more intelligence, 87.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 19.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Medium 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (xhigh) scores 50.10 for $95.1.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Mistral Medium 3.1Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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