ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Qwen3 Max

Too close to call on our weighted score (Mistral Medium 3.5 55, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 54, Qwen3 Max 50). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3.5

    Released Apr 29, 2026

    55/100
    • ECI141.4
    • Price$1.50 / $7.50
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3.5

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 Max Preview

    Released Apr 20, 2026

    54/100
    • ECI149.2
    • Price$1.30 / $7.80
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 Max Preview

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 Max

    Released Sep 23, 2025

    50/100
    • ECI142.4
    • Price$1.20 / $6.00
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 Max
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Mistral Medium 3.5 55/100, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 54/100, Qwen3 Max 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 Max Preview for raw capability and Qwen3 Max on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.6 Max PreviewCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Max Preview 149.2 · Qwen3 Max 142.4 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3 MaxQwen3 Max $2.40 · Qwen3.6 Max Preview $2.92 · Mistral Medium 3.5 $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextAbout the sameMistral Medium 3.5 262,144 · Qwen3.6 Max Preview 262,144 · Qwen3 Max 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsMistral Medium 3.5Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images · Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Text · Qwen3 Max: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Medium 3.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Medium 3.5Qwen3.6 Max PreviewQwen3 Max
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%677768
Price25%272832
Inputs & features15%703525
Context window10%373737
Overall100%55/10054/10050/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview vs Qwen3 Max specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AIQwen3.6 Max PreviewAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 MaxAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.4149.2 (best)142.4
ECI rank#95 of 148#54 of 148 (best)#91 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—87.4% (best)72.6%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——19.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—91.1% (best)73.3%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—76.7%—
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—52.0% (best)48.8%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.50$1.30$1.20 (best)
Output$7.50$7.80$6.00 (best)
Cached input$0.15$0.13 (best)—
Blended (3:1)$3.00$2.92$2.40 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesNoNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYeshighYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model IDmistral-medium-2604qwen3.6-max-previewqwen3-max
API providers121016 (best)
ReleasedApr 29, 2026Apr 20, 2026Sep 23, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025Apr 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.

  • Mistral Medium 3.5$30.00
  • Qwen3.6 Max Preview$28.60
  • Qwen3 Max$24.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Qwen3 Max?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Mistral Medium 3.5 55/100, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 54/100, Qwen3 Max 50/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 Max Preview for raw capability and Qwen3 Max on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.6 Max Preview or Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is cheaper at $1.20 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Qwen3.6 Max Preview costs $1.30 input / $7.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 input / $7.50 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.40 per million tokens for Qwen3 Max versus $2.92 for Qwen3.6 Max Preview (1.2× as much) and $3.00 for Mistral Medium 3.5 (1.3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.6 Max Preview scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.6 Max Preview 149.2 (#54 of 148), Qwen3 Max 142.4 (#91 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (147.6–152.0 vs 140.0–144.6), so the gap is a real one.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3 Max yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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?

Mistral Medium 3.5, Qwen3.6 Max Preview and Qwen3 Max share the same 262,144-token context window. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3.5 up to 262,144, Qwen3.6 Max Preview up to 65,536, Qwen3 Max up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images; Qwen3.6 Max Preview accepts text; Qwen3 Max accepts text. Mistral Medium 3.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral Medium 3.5 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.6 Max Preview and Qwen3 Max is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the newest, released Apr 29, 2026. Qwen3.6 Max Preview came out Apr 20, 2026; Qwen3 Max came out Sep 23, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.6 Max Preview Apr 2025, Qwen3 Max Apr 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

Related comparisons