ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3 30B A3B

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite comes out ahead, 71 to 60 and 58 on our weighted score, though Mistral Small 3.2 is 14% cheaper per token.

  1. 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
  2. Our pick

    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

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 30B A3B

    Released Apr 28, 2025

    58/100
    • ECI136.2
    • Price$0.114 / $0.50
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 30B A3B
01 — Verdict

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is our pick

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Mistral Small 3.2 (60) and Qwen3 30B A3B (58). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Small 3.2 wins on price. Qwen3 30B A3B wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3 30B A3BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 30B A3B 136.2 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 · Mistral Small 3.2 131.7
  • Lowest priceMistral Small 3.2Mistral Small 3.2 $0.15 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite $0.175 · Qwen3 30B A3B $0.21 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 1,048,576 · Qwen3 30B A3B 131,072 · Mistral Small 3.2 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteMistral Small 3.2: Text, Images · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Qwen3 30B A3B: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3 30B A3BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral Small 3.2Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteQwen3 30B A3B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%555861
Price25%898682
Inputs & features15%5010035
Context window10%246124
Overall100%60/10071/10058/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Mistral Small 3.2 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3 30B A3B specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral Small 3.2Mistral AIGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogleQwen3 30B A3BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)131.7133.9136.2 (best)
ECI rank#123 of 148#118 of 148#112 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions49.1%—61.7% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics30.3%—62.8% (best)
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10 (best)$0.10 (best)$0.114
Output$0.30 (best)$0.40$0.50
Cached input—$0.01—
Blended (3:1)$0.15 (best)$0.175$0.21
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Google APIMedian of 8 providers
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)131,072 tokens
Max output16,384 tokens65,536 tokens (best)16,384 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoYesNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningNoYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryOpen
API model IDmistral-small-2506gemini-2.5-flash-lite—
API providers620 (best)8
ReleasedJun 20, 2025Jun 17, 2025Apr 28, 2025
Knowledge cutoffMar 2025Jan 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 Small 3.2$1.60
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite$1.80
  • Qwen3 30B A3B$2.14
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral Small 3.2, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3 30B A3B?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Mistral Small 3.2 (60) and Qwen3 30B A3B (58). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mistral Small 3.2 wins on price. Qwen3 30B A3B wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Qwen3 30B A3B?

Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $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); Qwen3 30B A3B costs $0.114 input / $0.50 output per million tokens (median across 8 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.15 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3.2 versus $0.175 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (1.2× as much) and $0.21 for Qwen3 30B A3B (1.4× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3 30B A3B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 30B A3B 136.2 (#112 of 148), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 (#118 of 148) and Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 (#123 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (130.3–138.7 vs 129.8–136.3), so treat the gap as small.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Small 3.2, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Qwen3 30B A3B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 30B A3B 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 131,072 for Qwen3 30B A3B and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.2. Maximum output per response: Mistral Small 3.2 up to 16,384, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite up to 65,536, Qwen3 30B A3B up to 16,384 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral Small 3.2 accepts text and images; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Qwen3 30B A3B accepts text. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral Small 3.2 and Qwen3 30B A3B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Mistral Small 3.2 is the newest, released Jun 20, 2025. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite came out Jun 17, 2025; Qwen3 30B A3B came out Apr 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Small 3.2 Mar 2025, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Jan 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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