Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral or Qwen3.8 Max 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 Max scores 28.9 points higher (40.2 vs 11.3) but costs 75× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $42.5; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 11.3, and Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) when 11.3 is enough.
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.3 | 40.2 | +255.8% Qwen3.8 Max is 3.6× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $42.50 | $3,172.37 | +7364.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 75× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.77s | 64.64s | +337.6% Qwen3.8 Max is 337.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning): 255.8% more intelligence, 7364.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 337.6% 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.
- Qwen3.8 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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