Mistral Small 3.1 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 Coder Next scores 2.7 points higher (10.1 vs 7.4) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($476 vs $35.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 Coder Next when you need intelligence above 7.4, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.4 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.1 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.4 | 10.1 | +36.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 36.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $35.76 | $476.03 | +1231.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 13× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.09s | 5.52s | +35.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 35.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.10 / $0.30 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Small 3.1: 36.5% more intelligence, 1231.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 35.0% 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, Granite 4.2 3B scores 9.10 for $14.9.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Mistral Small 3.1Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-1/qwen3-coder-next · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-1/qwen3-coder-next?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill