Compare / Qwen3.5-27B vs Mistral Large 3

Qwen3.5-27B vs Mistral Large 3

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 19 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-27B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.27 in · $2.16 out
Mistral AIMistral Large 3 Released 2 Dec 2025 · $0.50 in · $1.50 out
Qwen3.5-27B wins 115 too close to callMistral Large 3 wins 3

Of the 19 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 13 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-13-2e2420e3c5cc). See also Alibaba vs Mistral AI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Large 3? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 9.3) at about the same price.

  • They cost about the same: $0.74 and $0.75 per million tokens (three input to one output).
  • Qwen3.5-27B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.9 against 9.3.
  • Qwen3.5-27B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 2 Dec 2025 for Mistral Large 3.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-27B does better for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

22.9
Intelligence Index
9.3
$0.74
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.75
262,144
Context window, tokens
262,144

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-27BMistral Large 3
Price per million tokens$0.27 in · $2.16 out$0.50 in · $1.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.74$0.75
Cheapest host, blended$0.54 (Alibaba)$0.75 (Mistral)
Cached input, per million–$0.050 cached input
Intelligence Index22.99.3
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–78
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)2 Dec 2025
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 145 of 164 134 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 82 of 198 158 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 98 of 188 97 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 121 of 152 122 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-27BMistral Large 3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 129 · 120 of 387 measured 1,409 1,414
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 112 · 92 of 163 measured 1,420 1,434
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 128 · 124 of 380 measured 1,408 1,410
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 86 · 180 of 243 measured 22.9 9.3
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 74 · 161 of 231 measured 85.8% 68.0%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 95 · 213 of 242 measured 23.9% 4.2%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 99 · 104 of 230 measured 42.4think-prefill reasoning 41.6no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 49 · 69 of 230 measured 11.0%think-prefill reasoning 15.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 147 · 35 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.38no reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 80 · 90 of 104 measured 12.1% 14.5%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 69 of 104 measured 99.8% 98.8%
Show all 19 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-27BMistral Large 3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 145 · 126 of 385 measured 1,358 1,374
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 112 · 129 of 338 measured 1,441 1,427
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 122 · 123 of 387 measured 1,401 1,400
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 135 · 121 of 386 measured 1,380 1,389
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 24 · 156 of 195 measured 75.6% 36.2%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 63 · 175 of 233 measured 77.7% 36.0%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 107 of 190 measured 32.6% 15.9%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 28 · 155 of 193 measured 93.9% 24.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-27B better than Mistral Large 3?

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 9.3) at about the same price.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Large 3?

They cost about the same: $0.74 and $0.75 per million tokens (three input to one output).

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

Mistral Large 3 ranks 134 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 145 for Qwen3.5-27B.

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

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 82 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 158 for Mistral Large 3.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Large 3?

Mistral Large 3 ranks 97 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 98 for Qwen3.5-27B.

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

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 121 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 122 for Mistral Large 3.

Run Qwen3.5-27B and Mistral Large 3 on your own prompt

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