Model comparison
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen 3.8 Max
Mistral against Qwen, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.
Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below
Mistral
Mistral Medium 3.5
Frontier · Open weights
Qwen
Qwen 3.8 Max
Frontier · Open weights
| Specification | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Qwen 3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Provider | Mistral | Qwen |
| Tier | ||
| Tier | Frontier | Frontier |
| Context window | ||
| Context window | 262K | Winner: 1M |
| Max output | ||
| Max output | Not verifiedUnverified | 131K |
| Input / 1M tokens | ||
| Input / 1M tokens | Winner: $1.50 | $2 |
| Output / 1M tokens | ||
| Output / 1M tokens | $7.50 | Winner: $6 |
| Weights | ||
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Parameters | ||
| Parameters | 128B dense | 2.4T total / 95B active (MoE) |
| Reasoning levels | ||
| Reasoning levels | Not verifiedUnverified | low, high, max |
| Modalities | ||
| Modalities | text, image | text, image, video |
| License | ||
| License | Modified MIT | Not disclosedUnverified |
| API model id | ||
| API model id | mistral-medium-3-5 | qwen3.8-max |
| Released | ||
| Released | April 28, 2026 | August 3, 2026 |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26) | ||
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26) | 14.2 | Winner: 45.4 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-03) | ||
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (2026-08-03) | Not verifiedUnverified | 86.6 |
| GPQA Diamond (2026-08-03) | ||
| GPQA Diamond (2026-08-03) | Not verifiedUnverified | 92.6 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14) | ||
| Humanity's Last Exam (2026-08-14) | Not verifiedUnverified | 56.2 |
| SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01) | ||
| SWE-bench Verified (2026-09-01) | Not verifiedUnverified | 85.6 |
Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.
Benchmark receipts
Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.
- 2026-09-26Artificial Analysis (0902 snapshot)
Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.
Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.
- 2026-09-01vals.ai SWE-bench Verified leaderboard (independent, mini-swe-agent bash-only); not published by Qwen (official used SWE-bench Pro 67.7)
Real GitHub issue resolution: does the model's patch pass the hidden tests.
Comparable with caveatPost-audit vendor claims and pre-audit scores sit on different task trust levels; scaffolding (agent harness, compute budget) also dominates results. Never aggregate across scaffolds.
- 2026-08-14Z.ai GLM-5.3 blog (independent Z.ai-run, with tools; Qwen official no-tools 43.6 — both preserved)
Frontier-knowledge ceiling: extremely hard multi-domain questions written to be near-impossible without deep expertise.
Comparable with caveatSubset/tool configurations (text-only vs with-tools) differ between vendors and materially change scores; must match configuration to compare.
- 2026-08-03Qwen official blog (vendor-run table)
Agentic terminal work: multi-step tasks executed in a sandboxed shell environment.
Comparable with caveatNot comparable with Terminal-Bench 3.0 or 4.0 (different task sets) or v1; harness configuration (container, time limits) also shifts results.
Pricing tiers
Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral first-party API $1.50/$7.50 per MTok; Mistral advertises up to 90% off cached input (exact cached rate not verified). Open weights under a Modified MIT licence. 128B dense.
Qwen 3.8 Max: $2/$6 per MTok (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio). 1M context (up to 991K input), 131,072 max output. A dated snapshot qwen3.8-max-0902 is also listed; open weights shipped separately as Qwen3.8-2.4T-A95B.
Mistral Medium 3.5
Mistral Medium 3.5 is the model Mistral calls its new flagship — a 128B dense open-weight model with a 256K context, powering its Vibe remote agents.
Best for
- EU-hosted frontier work
- Open-weight self-hosting
- Mistral Vibe agents
Watch out
Far behind US and Chinese frontier models on the Artificial Analysis index; max output is not published. Check the Modified MIT terms before redistribution.
Qwen 3.8 Max
Qwen 3.8 Max is Alibaba's flagship — 2.4T MoE with 1M-class context, near frontier on the Intelligence Index.
Best for
- Open-weight frontier work
- Long-context
- Multimodal
Watch out
Open weights dropped 2026-08-12 under a custom (non-Apache) licence with vision and 1M-context stripped from the open checkpoint — the open checkpoint is not the full API model. Verify the licence before commercial use.
When the cheaper one wins
Qwen 3.8 Max is cheaper on output at $6 per million tokens against $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5 — about 1.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.
Run the model pickerEvidence confidence: High
How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.
- Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
- 3/5 core specs verified on both sides — Not published for at least one side: max output, reasoning levels.
- 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
- Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
- Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.
Source receipts
Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.
- Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral docs — Mistral Medium 3.5 (26.04) (accessed 2026-09-26)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral — Vibe remote agents and Mistral Medium 3.5 (accessed 2026-09-26)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: Mistral changelog (2026-04-28) (accessed 2026-09-26)
- Qwen 3.8 Max: Qwen — Qwen 3.8 Max (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Qwen 3.8 Max: Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (accessed 2026-08-29)
- Qwen 3.8 Max: Alibaba Cloud Model Studio — text generation models (1M ctx, 131,072 out) (accessed 2026-09-26)
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Diving deeper on one model? Mistral Medium 3.5 · Qwen 3.8 Max
Common questions
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen 3.8 Max
Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for input?
Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max cheaper for output?
Which has the larger context window, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Should I use Mistral Medium 3.5 or Qwen 3.8 Max?
Next step
Choosing between them
The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.
- Input price: Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 per 1M tokens versus $2 for Qwen 3.8 Max — a 1.3x difference at the headline tier.
- Context: Qwen 3.8 Max takes 1M against 262K for Mistral Medium 3.5 — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
Choosing a harness rather than a model — Cursor, Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, or Lovable? Compare agentic harnesses · Latest releases.