Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next scores 32.8 points higher (39.8 vs 7.0) but costs 3.0× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $122; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 3.2.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 39.8 | +468.6% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 5.7× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $121.78 | $362.72 | +197.8% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 3.0× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.52s | 50.49s | +379.9% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 379.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.07 / $0.20 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Mistral Small 3.2: 468.6% more intelligence, 197.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 379.9% 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.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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