Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 31.2 points higher (45.4 vs 14.2) but costs 3.9× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $1264; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 14.2, and Mistral Medium 3.5 when 14.2 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.2 | 45.4 | +219.7% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 3.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,263.80 | $4,934.79 | +290.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 3.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.77s | 65.39s | +268.0% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 268.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.50 / $7.50 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Mistral Medium 3.5: 219.7% more intelligence, 290.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 268.0% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Mistral Medium 3.5Qwen3.8 Max (0902)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-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-medium-3-5/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill