Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (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 397B A17B (Reasoning) scores 7.1 points higher (18.4 vs 11.3) but costs 22× as much to run the benchmark ($941 vs $42.5; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.3 | 18.4 | +62.8% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 62.8% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $42.50 | $940.97 | +2114.0% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 22× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.50s | 64.76s | +346.6% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 346.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning): 62.8% more intelligence, 2114.0% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 346.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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