Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Medium 3.5 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
Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 3.0 points higher (14.2 vs 11.2) but costs 3.8× as much to run the benchmark ($1264 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.2 | 11.2 | −21.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 21.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,263.80 | $328.86 | −74.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 74.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.85s | 43.21s | +142.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 142.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.50 / $7.50 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Medium 3.5: 21.1% less intelligence, 74.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 142.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mistral Medium 3.5Qwen3.5 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-medium-3-5/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-medium-3-5/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill