Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 leads Mistral Medium 3.5 on coding, 39.5 to 25.5 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs 4.2x less per output token ($1.80 vs $7.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 12 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.5 for Mistral Medium 3.5, though on 2 benchmarks against 3.
Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 for work measured by ALE-Bench or SAGE (Vals AI), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 12
- Mistral Medium 3.5 only
- 70
- Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 only
- 13
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 scores 39.5 against 25.5.
3 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 14.2.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 7.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 leads, 87.4% against 34.9%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 has a AIME result, 86.0%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 leads, 87.2% against 75.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1142.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Mistral Medium 3.5 $0.0053, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $0.0012 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20
Mistral Medium 3.5 $6.02, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.35.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3.5 25.5 from 3 benchmarks, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 39.5 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Reasoning, 52.5 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- GPQA Diamond: Mistral Medium 3.5 34.9% against Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 87.4%, 52.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3.5 $7.50 against Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.80 per million output tokens, 4.2x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3.5 takes 262K tokens, Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 1M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Bars | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 1 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 2 | 10 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index12
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1264 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 46.9 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.3% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 66.4% | 71.2% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 2.9% | 15.7% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 5.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 39.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SciCode | 40.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 764.0 | 608.9 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1460 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1458 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1254 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1308 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 14.2 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.4 | 146.2 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 7.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 32.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 4.5% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 9.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 11.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 94.2% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $1 | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 35 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 34.9% | 87.4% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 22.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 74.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 84.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 8.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 17.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1436 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1432 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1445 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1254 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1230 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 41.4% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 86.0% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 86.7% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| ProofBench | 9.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1431 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1440 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 75.3% | 87.2% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.1% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 44.2% | 59.7% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 58.8% | 65.3% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 68.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 28.9% | 60.8% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 95.2% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 33.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 25.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1428 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1409 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1437 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1426 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1142 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1076 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1079 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1121 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1060 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1121 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 949 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1062 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 37.6% | 30.4% | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 67.7% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 34.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| IFBench | 68.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 69.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| DTBench | 75.5% | 80.5% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| LMCA | 26.1% | 36.4% | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 19.8% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 26.9% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| CL-bench Life | Not measured | 12.4% | Only Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1421 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1415 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1374 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1222 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1433 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1404 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1444 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1453 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1384 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1448 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1411 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1395 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1430 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1423 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1415 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1384 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1382 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1240 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1244 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1233 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1216 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1198 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 993 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 30, 2026 | April 27, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.50 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $7.50 | $1.80 |
| Coding index | 25.5 | 39.5 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 3 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $6.02 | $1.35 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding?
Pick Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 for coding: it scores 39.5 on the Vibe Coding Index against 25.5 for Mistral Medium 3.5, though on 2 benchmarks against 3. Pick Mistral Medium 3.5 for work measured by ALE-Bench or SAGE (Vals AI), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20?
Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 costs $0.30 and $1.80. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $6.02 and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 $1.35.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20?
Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20 comparison based on?
12 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Mistral Medium 3.5's coding index rests on 3 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.