Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Mistral Medium 3.1

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Mistral Medium 3.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3.1 Released 12 Aug 2025 · $0.40 in · $2.00 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 133 too close to callMistral Medium 3.1 wins 6

Of the 22 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.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 9.2) and costs less.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.80 per million tokens, 44% less.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 19.3 against 9.2.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 12 Aug 2025 for Mistral Medium 3.1.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does better for reasoning and knowledge.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
9.2
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.80
262,144
Context window, tokens
131,072

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BMistral Medium 3.1
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$0.40 in · $2.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$0.80
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$0.80 (Mistral)
Intelligence Index19.39.2
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens131,072 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)12 Aug 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 116 of 164 124 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 160 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 112 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BMistral Medium 3.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 130 of 387 measured 1,394 1,408
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 99 of 163 measured 1,407 1,429
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 129 of 380 measured 1,403 1,407
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 181 of 243 measured 19.3 9.2
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 184 of 231 measured 84.5% 58.8%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 196 of 242 measured 21.0% 4.7%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 114 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 39.5
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 156 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 27.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 24 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.39
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 101 of 104 measured 10.5% 22.7%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 41 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.7%
Show all 22 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BMistral Medium 3.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 123 of 385 measured 1,342 1,378
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 143 of 338 measured 1,419 1,410
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 133 of 387 measured 1,386 1,395
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 128 of 386 measured 1,363 1,386
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 96 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 13.9%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 86 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 8.2%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 102 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 20.5
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 135 of 195 measured 72.5% 39.8%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 168 of 233 measured 72.0% 42.7%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 127 of 190 measured 26.5% 10.6%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 116 of 193 measured 89.2% 40.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Mistral Medium 3.1?

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 9.2) and costs less.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.80 per million tokens, 44% less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 116 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, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 92 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, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 108 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 112 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 112 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 130 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Mistral Medium 3.1?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: 262,144 tokens, against 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3.1.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Mistral Medium 3.1 on your own prompt

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