Compare / Qwen3-32B vs Mistral Medium 3.1

Qwen3-32B vs Mistral Medium 3.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 23 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-32B Released 28 Apr 2025 · $0.14 in · $0.40 out
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3.1 Released 12 Aug 2025 · $0.40 in · $2.00 out
Qwen3-32B wins 62 too close to callMistral Medium 3.1 wins 15

Of the 23 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs Mistral AI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1? The short answer

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3-32B: it costs 3.9 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-32B is cheaper: $0.21 against $0.80 per million tokens, 3.9 times less.
  • They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (8.6 and 9.2).
  • Mistral Medium 3.1 is newer: released 12 Aug 2025, against 28 Apr 2025 for Qwen3-32B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-32B does better for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts; Mistral Medium 3.1 for agents and tool use and writing.

Head to head

8.6
Intelligence Index
9.2
$0.21
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.80
131,072
Context window, tokens
131,072

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-32BMistral Medium 3.1
Price per million tokens$0.14 in · $0.40 out$0.40 in · $2.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.21$0.80
Cheapest host, blended$0.13 (DeepInfra, FP8)$0.80 (Mistral)
Intelligence Index8.69.2
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens131,072 tokens
Released28 Apr 202512 Aug 2025 (newer)
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinaFrance

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 113 of 164 124 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 148 of 198 160 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 139 of 188 112 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 22 of 152 130 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3-32BMistral Medium 3.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 195 · 130 of 387 measured 1,347 1,408
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 203 · 129 of 380 measured 1,340 1,407
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 205 · 123 of 385 measured 1,304 1,378
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 188 · 181 of 243 measured 8.6thinking reasoning 9.2
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 167 · 184 of 231 measured 66.8%thinking reasoning 58.8%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 168 · 196 of 242 measured 7.4%thinking reasoning 4.7%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 134 · 114 of 230 measured 33.0no reasoning 39.5
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 99 · 156 of 230 measured 19.0%no reasoning 27.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 175 · 24 of 230 measured 0.32no reasoning 0.39
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 24 · 101 of 104 measured 5.9% 22.7%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 41 of 104 measured 99.9% 99.7%
Show all 23 results (12 more)
MeasureQwen3-32BMistral Medium 3.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 159 · 143 of 338 measured 1,398 1,410
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 198 · 133 of 387 measured 1,331 1,395
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 217 · 128 of 386 measured 1,308 1,386
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 9 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 111 · 96 of 130 measured 5.2%thinking reasoning 13.9%
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 66 · 66 of 112 measured 0.0%thinking reasoning 0.0%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 102 · 86 of 121 measured 5.4%thinking reasoning 8.2%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 111 · 102 of 131 measured 15.3thinking reasoning 20.5
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 155 · 135 of 195 measured 36.3%thinking reasoning 39.8%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 168 of 233 measured 0.0%no reasoning 42.7%
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 91 · 96 of 113 measured 36.0%thinking reasoning 32.4%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 169 · 127 of 190 measured 3.0%thinking reasoning 10.6%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 135 · 116 of 193 measured 29.8%thinking reasoning 40.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-32B better than Mistral Medium 3.1?

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3-32B: it costs 3.9 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3-32B is cheaper: $0.21 against $0.80 per million tokens, 3.9 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3-32B ranks 113 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 124 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3-32B ranks 148 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 160 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Mistral Medium 3.1 ranks 112 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 139 for Qwen3-32B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-32B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3-32B ranks 22 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 130 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Run Qwen3-32B and Mistral Medium 3.1 on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.