Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) scores 20.5 points higher (27.6 vs 7.1) but costs 42× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $27.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.1 | 27.6 | +288.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.9× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $27.82 | $1,165.00 | +4087.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 42× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.99s | 55.12s | +359.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 359.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.08 / $0.14 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Mistral Small 3.1: 288.7% more intelligence, 4087.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 359.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Small 3.1Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)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-small-3-1/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-1/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill