Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Mistral Medium 3 leads Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 9.0 to 7.3, and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs 2.7x less per output token ($0.75 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 11 benchmarks have a result for both.
Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct: 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 τ²-Bench Telecom or GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 11
- Mistral Medium 3 only
- 46
- Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 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
Mistral Medium 3
Mistral Medium 3 leads, 9.0 against 7.3.
Same board, both measured
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 VL 8B Instruct
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Mistral Medium 3 $0.0014, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct $0.0006 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Mistral Medium 3 not benchmarked, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 5.0 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Mistral Medium 3 24.3% against Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 29.2%, 5.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Mistral Medium 3 $2.00 against Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct $0.75 per million output tokens, 2.7x apart.
- Context window
- Mistral Medium 3 takes 131K tokens, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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 VL 8B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 1 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 4 | 6 | 1 tie |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 40.0% | 35.3% | Mistral Medium 3 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 3.8% | 3.8% | Tie |
| 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 35 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 9.0 | 7.3 | Mistral Medium 3 |
| 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 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 24.3% | 29.2% | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 57.8% | 57.9% | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 4.1% | 3.8% | Mistral Medium 3 |
| 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 15 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 30.3 | 30.7 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 30.3% | 30.7% | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| 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 | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 76.0% | 74.9% | Mistral Medium 3 |
| 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 13 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | 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 | 1084 | 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 index02
| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 39.3% | 39.9% | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 31.3% | 33.3% | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct |
| 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 VL 8B Instruct | 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 VL 8B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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 VL 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | October 14, 2025 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.40 | $0.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.75 |
| 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 VL 8B Instruct 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 τ²-Bench Telecom or GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?
Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.25 and $0.75. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct comparison based on?
11 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 VL 8B Instruct's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.