Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 5.0 points higher (14.2 vs 9.2) but costs 3.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1264 vs $405; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when you need intelligence above 9.2, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 9.2 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 14.2 | 9.2 | −35.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 35.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,263.80 | $405.10 | −67.9% Qwen3 Coder Next is 67.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.96s | 6.44s | −64.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 64.1% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.50 / $7.50 | $0.31 / $1.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Medium 3.5: 35.2% less intelligence, 67.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 64.1% 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 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Mistral Medium 3.5Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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