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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Qwen3.6 Max Preview

Too close to call on our weighted score (Mistral Medium 3.5 55, Qwen3.6 Max Preview 54). 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

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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), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.6 Max Preview for raw capability. 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 · Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4
  • Lowest priceQwen3.6 Max PreviewQwen3.6 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 tokens
  • Widest inputsMistral Medium 3.5Mistral Medium 3.5: Text, Images · Qwen3.6 Max Preview: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Medium 3.5Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Medium 3.5Qwen3.6 Max Preview
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%6777
Price25%2728
Inputs & features15%7035
Context window10%3737
Overall100%55/10054/100
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 specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AIQwen3.6 Max PreviewAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.4149.2 (best)
ECI rank#95 of 148#54 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—87.4%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—91.1%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—76.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—52.0%
Price per million tokens
Input$1.50$1.30 (best)
Output$7.50 (best)$7.80
Cached input$0.15$0.13 (best)
Blended (3:1)$3.00$2.92 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output262,144 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYeshighYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietary
API model IDmistral-medium-2604qwen3.6-max-preview
API providers12 (best)10
ReleasedApr 29, 2026Apr 20, 2026
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 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
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

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

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

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

Qwen3.6 Max Preview is cheaper at $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 $2.92 per million tokens for Qwen3.6 Max Preview versus $3.00 for Mistral Medium 3.5 (1× 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) and Mistral Medium 3.5 141.4 (#95 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (147.6–152.0 vs 138.4–143.7), 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 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. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts text and images; Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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 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. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.6 Max Preview 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

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