Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.1 points higher (10.1 vs 7.0) but costs 2.9× as much to run the benchmark ($476 vs $163; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3 Coder Next when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 3.2.
| Metric | Mistral Small 3.2 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 7.0 | 10.1 | +44.3% Qwen3 Coder Next is 44.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $162.68 | $476.03 | +192.6% Qwen3 Coder Next is 2.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 3.90s | 5.52s | +41.5% Qwen3 Coder Next is 41.5% 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 3.2: 44.3% more intelligence, 192.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 41.5% 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-V2.5-Pro scores 26.40 for $138.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Mistral Small 3.2Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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