Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next scores 28.5 points higher (39.8 vs 11.3) but costs 8.5× as much to run the benchmark ($363 vs $42.5; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.3 | 39.8 | +252.2% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 3.5× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $42.50 | $362.72 | +753.5% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 8.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.50s | 50.57s | +248.8% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 248.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning): 252.2% more intelligence, 753.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 248.8% 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-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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