Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) 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
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) scores 4.2 points higher (11.2 vs 7.0) but costs 2.7× as much to run the benchmark ($329 vs $122; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 3.2.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 11.2 | +60.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 60.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.78 | $328.86 | +170.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 2.7× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 12.50s | 43.21s | +245.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 245.7% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.07 / $0.20 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Small 3.2: 60.0% more intelligence, 170.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 245.7% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)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-3-2/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-3-2/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill