ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3 8B comes out ahead, 56 to 53 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Mistral AI

    Mistral Medium 3

    Released May 7, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI134.1
    • Price$0.40 / $2.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Medium 3
  2. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 8B

    Released Apr 28, 2025

    56/100
    • ECI136.2
    • Price$0.18 / $0.70
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 8B

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3 8B is our pick

Qwen3 8B is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability and price. Mistral Medium 3 wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3 8BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 8B 136.2 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
  • Lowest priceQwen3 8BQwen3 8B $0.31 · Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextAbout the sameMistral Medium 3 131,072 · Qwen3 8B 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsMistral Medium 3Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Qwen3 8B: Text
  • Self-hostingQwen3 8BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Medium 3Qwen3 8B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%5861
Price25%5474
Inputs & features15%5035
Context window10%2424
Overall100%53/10056/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Mistral Medium 3 vs Qwen3 8B specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Medium 3Mistral AIQwen3 8BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)134.1136.2 (best)
ECI rank#117 of 148#113 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions59.5% (best)56.8%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics32.2%56.1% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40$0.18 (best)
Output$2.00$0.70 (best)
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$0.80$0.31 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens131,072 tokens
Max output131,072 tokens (best)8,192 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningNoYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpen
API model IDmistral-medium-2505qwen3-8b
API providers5 (best)1
ReleasedMay 7, 2025Apr 28, 2025
Knowledge cutoffMay 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$8.00
  • Qwen3 8B$3.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on capability and price. Mistral Medium 3 wins on inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 input / $0.70 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.31 per million tokens for Qwen3 8B versus $0.80 for Mistral Medium 3 (2.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 8B 136.2 (#113 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (129.7–138.1 vs 130.5–135.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Mistral Medium 3 59.5%, Qwen3 8B 56.8%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 8B 56.1%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Medium 3 and Qwen3 8B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 8B 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 8B share the same 131,072-token context window. Maximum output per response: Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Qwen3 8B up to 8,192 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Qwen3 8B accepts text. Mistral Medium 3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3 8B 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 8B came out Apr 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, Qwen3 8B 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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