Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) scores 16.3 points higher (27.6 vs 11.3) but costs 27× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $42.5; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.3 | 27.6 | +144.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 2.4× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $42.50 | $1,165.00 | +2641.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 27× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.50s | 55.12s | +280.1% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 280.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning): 144.2% more intelligence, 2641.2% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 280.1% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)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-4/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/mistral-small-4/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill