Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 235B-A22B
Too close to call on our weighted score (Mistral Medium 3 53, Qwen3 235B-A22B 51). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3
53/100- ECI134.1
- Price$0.40 / $2.00
- Context131K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 235B-A22B
51/100- ECI139.4
- Price$0.70 / $2.80
- Context131K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Mistral Medium 3 53/100, Qwen3 235B-A22B 51/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 235B-A22B for raw capability and Mistral Medium 3 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3 235B-A22BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 235B-A22B 139.4 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
- Lowest priceMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 · Qwen3 235B-A22B $1.23 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextAbout the sameMistral Medium 3 131,072 · Qwen3 235B-A22B 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Qwen3 235B-A22B: Text
- Self-hostingQwen3 235B-A22BPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Mistral Medium 3 | Qwen3 235B-A22B |
|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 58 | 65 |
| Price | 25% | 54 | 46 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 50 | 35 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 53/100 | 51/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mistral Medium 3Mistral AI | Qwen3 235B-A22BAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 134.1 | 139.4 (best) |
| ECI rank | #117 of 148 | #103 of 148 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 59.5% | 70.7% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 32.2% | — |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.40 (best) | $0.70 |
| Output | $2.00 (best) | $2.80 |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.80 (best) | $1.23 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Max output | 131,072 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | mistral-medium-2505 | qwen3-235b-a22b |
| API providers | 5 | 7 (best) |
| Released | May 7, 2025 | Apr 28, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | May 2025 | Apr 2025 |
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$8.00
- Qwen3 235B-A22B$12.60
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 235B-A22B?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Mistral Medium 3 53/100, Qwen3 235B-A22B 51/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 235B-A22B for raw capability and Mistral Medium 3 on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 235B-A22B?
Mistral Medium 3 is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Qwen3 235B-A22B costs $0.70 input / $2.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.80 per million tokens for Mistral Medium 3 versus $1.23 for Qwen3 235B-A22B (1.5× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen3 235B-A22B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 235B-A22B 139.4 (#103 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (135.2–140.8 vs 130.5–135.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3 235B-A22B 70.7%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3 235B-A22B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 235B-A22B 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 and Qwen3 235B-A22B share the same 131,072-token context window. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3 235B-A22B up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3 235B-A22B accepts text. Mistral Medium 3 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Qwen3 235B-A22B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Mistral Medium 3 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Mistral Medium 3 is the newest, released May 7, 2025. Qwen3 235B-A22B came out Apr 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, Qwen3 235B-A22B 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.
Related comparisons
- Add GPT-4.1 miniThree-way comparison
- Mistral Medium 3 vs GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI · ECI 135.0
- Mistral Medium 3 vs QwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 137.6
- Mistral Medium 3 vs Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructMeta · ECI 132.2
- Mistral Medium 3 vs DeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek · ECI 135.9
- Qwen3 235B-A22B vs DeepSeek-R1DeepSeek · ECI 139.0
- Qwen3 235B-A22B vs Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle · ECI 140.8
