Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash costs 7.7x less per output token than Mistral Medium 3 ($0.26 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 30 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5-Flash: which to pick
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, 41.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Medium 3 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mistral Medium 3 for work measured by LMArena Text: creative writing, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 30
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 27
- Qwen3.5-Flash only
- 25
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 9.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a GPQA Diamond result, 82.8%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a AIME result, 92.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a MMLU Pro result, 84.1%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1079.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash takes 1M tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash
Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014, Qwen3.5-Flash $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has the number, $0.40.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked, Qwen3.5-Flash 41.1 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Intelligence, 11.9 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- DTBench: Mistral Medium 3 62.3% against Qwen3.5-Flash 82.9%, 20.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 against Qwen3.5-Flash $0.26 per million output tokens, 7.7x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens, Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Bars | Qwen3.5-Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 3 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 1 | 17 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 29 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1244 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.4% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 265.9 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1412 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | 1416 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1229 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1291 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 134.0 | 143.5 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 24.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 82.8% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 81.9% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.8% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.1% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 82.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 20.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1403 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1342 | 1407 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | 1409 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1155 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1165 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 92.5% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| AA Math Index | 30.3 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 30.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 84.4% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 18.2% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1353 | 1407 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1354 | 1413 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 84.1% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 56.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.6% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.2% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.4% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 20.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1381 | 1415 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1381 | 1407 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1384 | 1398 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1352 | 1394 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1079 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1022 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1017 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1034 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1083 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1068 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index117
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 42.5% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.6% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| IFBench | 39.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 31.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| DTBench | 62.3% | 82.9% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMCA | Not measured | 29.1% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1397 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1338 | 1374 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1343 | 1343 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision | 1157 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1404 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1353 | 1385 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1374 | 1445 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: German | 1377 | 1390 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1316 | 1369 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1304 | 1344 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | 1413 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1364 | 1400 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | 1380 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1371 | 1376 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1384 | 1393 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1360 | 1392 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1352 | 1369 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1335 | 1347 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1172 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1161 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1154 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1145 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1094 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1141 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1146 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 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 | Qwen3.5-Flash | 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-Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | February 25, 2026 |
| Context window | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.065 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.26 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 41.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.40 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Medium 3 better than Qwen3.5-Flash for coding?
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, 41.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; Mistral Medium 3 has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mistral Medium 3 for work measured by LMArena Text: creative writing, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-Flash costs $0.065 and $0.26. Cost per solved task is known for Qwen3.5-Flash only.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Qwen3.5-Flash, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3.5-Flash comparison based on?
30 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Mistral Medium 3's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5-Flash's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.