ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Mistral Small 3.2

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 9B 72, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71, Mistral Small 3.2 60). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Google

    Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

    Released Jun 17, 2025

    71/100
    • ECI133.9
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 9B

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    72/100
    • ECI139.5
    • Price$0.10 / $0.15
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 9B

  3. Mistral AI

    Mistral Small 3.2

    Released Jun 20, 2025

    60/100
    • ECI131.7
    • Price$0.10 / $0.30
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Small 3.2
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 9B for raw capability and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 9BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 · Mistral Small 3.2 131.7
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 9B $0.113 · Mistral Small 3.2 $0.15 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite $0.175 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 1,048,576 · Qwen3.5 9B 262,144 · Mistral Small 3.2 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Qwen3.5 9B: Text, Images, Video · Mistral Small 3.2: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 9B and Mistral Small 3.2Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.5 9BMistral Small 3.2
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%586555
Price25%869589
Inputs & features15%1008050
Context window10%613724
Overall100%71/10072/10060/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Mistral Small 3.2 specifications side by side
SpecificationGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogleQwen3.5 9BAlibaba (Qwen)Mistral Small 3.2Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)133.9139.5 (best)131.7
ECI rank#118 of 148#101 of 148 (best)#123 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—79.0% (best)49.1%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—61.7% (best)30.3%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10$0.10$0.10
Output$0.40$0.15 (best)$0.30
Cached input$0.01——
Blended (3:1)$0.175$0.113 (best)$0.15
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Google APIMedian of 14 providersOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window1,048,576 tokens (best)262,144 tokens128,000 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens (best)65,536 tokens (best)16,384 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsYesNoNo
AudioYesNoNo
VideoYesYesNo
ReasoningYesYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenOpen
API model IDgemini-2.5-flash-lite—mistral-small-2506
API providers20 (best)156
ReleasedJun 17, 2025Feb 23, 2026Jun 20, 2025
Knowledge cutoffJan 2025—Mar 2025
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite$1.80
  • Qwen3.5 9B$1.30
  • Mistral Small 3.2$1.60
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, Qwen3.5 9B or Mistral Small 3.2?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 9B for raw capability and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, Qwen3.5 9B or Mistral Small 3.2?

Qwen3.5 9B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 14 API providers). Mistral Small 3.2 costs $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price); Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Google API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.113 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 9B versus $0.15 for Mistral Small 3.2 (1.3× as much) and $0.175 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (1.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 9B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 (#101 of 148), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 (#118 of 148) and Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 (#123 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (136.5–141.3 vs 129.8–136.3), so the gap is a real one.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, Qwen3.5 9B and Mistral Small 3.2 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 9B leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5 9B and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.2. Maximum output per response: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite up to 65,536, Qwen3.5 9B up to 65,536, Mistral Small 3.2 up to 16,384 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Qwen3.5 9B accepts text, images and video; Mistral Small 3.2 accepts text and images. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3.5 9B and Mistral Small 3.2 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 9B is the newest, released Feb 23, 2026. Mistral Small 3.2 came out Jun 20, 2025; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite came out Jun 17, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Jan 2025, Mistral Small 3.2 Mar 2025.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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