Compare / Qwen3.5-27B vs Ministral 3 8B

Qwen3.5-27B vs Ministral 3 8B

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 12 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-27B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.27 in · $2.16 out
Mistral AIMinistral 3 8B Released 2 Dec 2025 · $0.15 in · $0.15 out
Qwen3.5-27B wins 11Ministral 3 8B wins 1

Of the 12 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.

Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-27B if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 5.5). Pick Ministral 3 8B if cost matters more: it costs 5.0 times less per token.

  • Ministral 3 8B is cheaper: $0.15 against $0.74 per million tokens, 5.0 times less.
  • Qwen3.5-27B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.9 against 5.5.
  • Qwen3.5-27B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 2 Dec 2025 for Ministral 3 8B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-27B does better for reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

22.9
Intelligence Index
5.5
$0.74
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.15
262,144
Context window, tokens
262,144

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-27BMinistral 3 8B
Price per million tokens$0.27 in · $2.16 out$0.15 in · $0.15 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.74$0.15
Cheapest host, blended$0.54 (Alibaba)$0.15 (Mistral)
Cached input, per million–$0.015 cached input
Intelligence Index22.95.5
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–102
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)2 Dec 2025
WeightsOpenOpen
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 145 of 164 153 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 82 of 198 187 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 98 of 188 157 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 121 of 152 146 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-27BMinistral 3 8B
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 86 · 237 of 243 measured 22.9 5.5
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 74 · 208 of 231 measured 85.8% 47.1%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 95 · 209 of 242 measured 23.9% 4.3%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 99 · 160 of 230 measured 42.4think-prefill reasoning 28.8
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 49 · 134 of 230 measured 11.0%think-prefill reasoning 23.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 147 · 140 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.33think-prefill reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 80 · 100 of 104 measured 12.1% 21.7%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 61 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.1%
Show all 12 results (4 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-27BMinistral 3 8B
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 24 · 185 of 195 measured 75.6% 29.1%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 63 · 193 of 233 measured 77.7% 25.7%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 156 of 190 measured 32.6% 4.5%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 28 · 146 of 193 measured 93.9% 26.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-27B better than Ministral 3 8B?

Pick Qwen3.5-27B if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 5.5). Pick Ministral 3 8B if cost matters more: it costs 5.0 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B?

Ministral 3 8B is cheaper: $0.15 against $0.74 per million tokens, 5.0 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 145 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 153 for Ministral 3 8B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 82 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 187 for Ministral 3 8B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 98 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 157 for Ministral 3 8B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-27B or Ministral 3 8B?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 121 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 146 for Ministral 3 8B.

Run Qwen3.5-27B and Ministral 3 8B on your own prompt

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