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 2026-07-17.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Mistral Medium 3.5 scores 8.8 points higher (29.9 vs 21.1) but costs 6.0× as much to run the benchmark ($1483 vs $247; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Mistral Medium 3.5 when you need intelligence above 21.1, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 21.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 29.9 | 21.1 | −29.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 29.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,483.40 | $247.26 | −83.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 83.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 28.08s | 6.61s | −76.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 76.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.50 / $7.50 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Medium 3.5: 29.4% less intelligence, 83.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 76.5% 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-5.6 Sol (high) scores 55.90 for $956.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Terra (medium) scores 45.60 for $240.
Mistral Medium 3.5Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto 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-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-medium-3-5/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill