Compare / Qwen3.5-27B vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Qwen3.5-27B vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 17 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-27B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.27 in · $2.16 out
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3.5 Released 28 Apr 2026 · $1.50 in · $7.50 out
Qwen3.5-27B wins 61 too close to callMistral Medium 3.5 wins 10

Of the 17 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 Medium 3.5? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 14.2) and costs less.

  • Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $3.00 per million tokens, 4.0 times less.
  • Qwen3.5-27B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.9 against 14.2.
  • Mistral Medium 3.5 is newer: released 28 Apr 2026, against 24 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-27B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-27B does better for reasoning and knowledge; Mistral Medium 3.5 for writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

22.9
Intelligence Index
14.2
$0.74
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$3.00
262,144
Context window, tokens
262,144

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-27BMistral Medium 3.5
Price per million tokens$0.27 in · $2.16 out$1.50 in · $7.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.74$3.00
Cheapest host, blended$0.54 (Alibaba)$3.00 (Mistral)
Cached input, per million–$0.15 cached input
Intelligence Index22.914.2
Spring Prompt overall–16
Output speed, tokens a second–160
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Released24 Feb 202628 Apr 2026 (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.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live not measured 15 of 21
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is not measured 19 of 20
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled not measured 8 of 9
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending not measured 20 of 20
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 145 of 164 93 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 82 of 198 122 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 98 of 188 86 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 121 of 152 100 of 152
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 9 of 24

From our research

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 Medium 3.5
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 129 · 99 of 387 measured 1,409 1,427
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 112 · 97 of 163 measured 1,420 1,431
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 128 · 98 of 380 measured 1,408 1,430
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 86 · 133 of 243 measured 22.9 14.2
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 74 · 139 of 231 measured 85.8% 74.8%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 95 · 131 of 242 measured 23.9% 13.8%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 99 · 86 of 230 measured 42.4think-prefill reasoning 45.5no reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 49 · 91 of 230 measured 11.0%think-prefill reasoning 18.0%no reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 147 · 108 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.35no reasoning
Show all 17 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-27BMistral Medium 3.5
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 145 · 95 of 385 measured 1,358 1,400
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 112 · 119 of 338 measured 1,441 1,435
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 122 · 92 of 387 measured 1,401 1,422
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 135 · 100 of 386 measured 1,380 1,405
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 24 · 59 of 195 measured 75.6% 68.8%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 63 · 113 of 233 measured 77.7% 69.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 57 of 190 measured 32.6% 33.3%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 28 · 25 of 193 measured 93.9% 94.2%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-27B better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 14.2) and costs less.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $3.00 per million tokens, 4.0 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 ranks 93 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 Medium 3.5?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 82 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 122 for Mistral Medium 3.5.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-27B or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 ranks 86 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 Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 ranks 100 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 121 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Run Qwen3.5-27B and Mistral Medium 3.5 on your own prompt

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