Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) by Mistral or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-08-07.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3 Coder Next scores 1.6 points higher (21.3 vs 19.7) but costs 2.9× as much to run the benchmark ($250 vs $87.7; both mid-range class). Pick Qwen3 Coder Next when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning).
| Metric | Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 19.7 | 21.3 | +8.1% Qwen3 Coder Next is 8.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $87.67 | $250.18 | +185.4% Qwen3 Coder Next is 2.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.35s | 5.28s | −71.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 71.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.60 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning): 8.1% more intelligence, 185.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 71.2% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Reasoning, Max Effort) scores 51.80 for $72.0.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-5.6 Luna (max) scores 52.30 for $172.
Mistral Small 4 (Reasoning)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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