Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 27B (Non-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
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) scores 6.0 points higher (20.2 vs 14.2) but costs 1.8× as much to run the benchmark ($2022 vs $1147; flagship vs premium cost classes). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Medium 3.5.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.2 | 20.2 | +42.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 42.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,146.55 | $2,022.49 | +76.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 76.4% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.29s | 14.28s | −17.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reas… is 17.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.50 / $7.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) vs Mistral Medium 3.5: 42.3% more intelligence, 76.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 17.4% faster 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Non-reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Medium 3.5Qwen3.8 27B (Non-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/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-medium-3-5/qwen3-8-27b-non-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill