Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B leads Mistral Medium 3 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 11.9 to 9.0, and Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B costs 1.3x less per output token ($1.50 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 44 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Mistral Medium 3 for work measured by LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 44
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 13
- Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B only
- 8
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B leads, 11.9 against 9.0.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B leads, 1159 against 1079.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B
Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B $0.0010 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 19.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Mistral Medium 3 24.3% against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 43.6%, 19.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 against Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B $1.50 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens, Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 262K.
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 Coder 480B A35B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 4 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 4 | ||
| Math | 0 | 4 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 1 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 5 | ||
| General | 12 | 7 | ||
| All shared boards | 17 | 27 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index04
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 69.6% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1275 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.0% | 58.5% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 18.9% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 27.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 4.9% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 41.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 461.4 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | 1412 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | 1393 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1257 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1287 | Only Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.0 | 11.9 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 134.0 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 24.3% | 43.6% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 38 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.8% | 61.8% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.1% | 4.5% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | 1372 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1342 | 1338 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | 1380 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| 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 14 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 30.3 | 39.3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 30.3% | 39.3% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: math | 1353 | 1365 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1354 | 1367 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index41
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.0% | 78.8% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: science | 1381 | 1347 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1381 | 1347 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1384 | 1358 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1352 | 1343 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1079 | 1159 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1024 | 1113 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1018 | 1099 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1034 | 1084 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1084 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1069 | 1143 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index127
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 39.3% | 40.5% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 31.3% | 45.7% | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| DTBench | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1357 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1338 | 1355 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1343 | 1333 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Vision | 1157 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | 1359 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1353 | 1346 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1374 | 1357 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: German | 1377 | 1325 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1316 | 1311 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1304 | 1305 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | 1398 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1364 | 1360 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | 1366 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1371 | 1344 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1384 | 1366 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1360 | 1378 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1352 | 1340 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1335 | 1317 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| 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 18 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B | 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 Coder 480B A35B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B 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 Coder 480B A35B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | July 23, 2025 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.30 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.00 | $1.50 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Medium 3 better than Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Mistral Medium 3 for work measured by LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B costs $0.30 and $1.50. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B?
Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B comparison based on?
44 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Mistral Medium 3's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 480B A35B's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.