Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Updated October 21, 2026. 7 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Mistral Medium 3 has the edge where what matters is Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 7
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 50
- Qwen3 Coder Next only
- 4
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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 Next
Qwen3 Coder Next leads, 9.2 against 9.0.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Qwen3 Coder Next has a AA Agentic Index result, 0.9.
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 Coder Next
Qwen3 Coder Next takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder Next
Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014, Qwen3 Coder Next $0.0005 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked, Qwen3 Coder Next not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 55.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Mistral Medium 3 24.3% against Qwen3 Coder Next 79.5%, 55.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 against Qwen3 Coder Next $0.80 per million output tokens, 2.5x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens, Qwen3 Coder Next 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 Next | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 2 | ||
| General | 1 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 6 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 36.2 | Only Qwen3 Coder Next measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 36.2% | Only Qwen3 Coder Next measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 18.2% | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 34.4% | Only Qwen3 Coder Next measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1385 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1385 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.0 | 9.2 | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| 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 Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 0.9 | Only Qwen3 Coder Next measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 24.3% | 79.5% | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.8% | 73.7% | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.1% | 10.1% | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1342 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1374 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| 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 | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| LMArena Text: math | 1353 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1354 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.0% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1381 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1381 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1384 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1352 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1079 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1024 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1018 | 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 | 1069 | 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 index11
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 Coder Next | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 39.3% | 35.2% | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 31.3% | 47.0% | Qwen3 Coder Next |
| DTBench | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1370 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1338 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1343 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1157 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1385 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1353 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1374 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1377 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1316 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1304 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1368 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1364 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1359 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1371 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1384 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1360 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1352 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1335 | Not measured | Only Mistral Medium 3 measured |
| 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 Next | 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 Next costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder Next costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder Next 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 Next |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | February 4, 2026 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.12 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.80 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Mistral Medium 3 better than Qwen3 Coder Next for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Mistral Medium 3 has the edge where what matters is Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) or AA Intelligence Index, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next?
Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder Next costs $0.12 and $0.80. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 Coder Next?
Qwen3 Coder Next, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 Coder Next comparison based on?
7 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 Next's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.