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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3 235B-A22B vs Mistral Medium 3

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.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 235B-A22B

    Released Apr 28, 2025

    51/100
    • ECI139.4
    • Price$0.70 / $2.80
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 235B-A22B

  2. 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

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01 — Verdict

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 sameQwen3 235B-A22B 131,072 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsMistral Medium 3Qwen3 235B-A22B: Text · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingQwen3 235B-A22BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3 235B-A22BMistral Medium 3
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%6558
Price25%4654
Inputs & features15%3550
Context window10%2424
Overall100%51/10053/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3 235B-A22B vs Mistral Medium 3 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3 235B-A22BAlibaba (Qwen)Mistral Medium 3Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)139.4 (best)134.1
ECI rank#103 of 148 (best)#117 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions70.7% (best)59.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—32.2%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.70$0.40 (best)
Output$2.80$2.00 (best)
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$1.23$0.80 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens131,072 tokens
Max output16,384 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningYesNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietary
API model IDqwen3-235b-a22bmistral-medium-2505
API providers7 (best)5
ReleasedApr 28, 2025May 7, 2025
Knowledge cutoffApr 2025May 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.

  • Qwen3 235B-A22B$12.60
  • Mistral Medium 3$8.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3 235B-A22B or Mistral Medium 3?

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, Qwen3 235B-A22B or Mistral Medium 3?

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 Qwen3 235B-A22B and Mistral Medium 3 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?

Qwen3 235B-A22B and Mistral Medium 3 share the same 131,072-token context window. Maximum output per response: Qwen3 235B-A22B up to 16,384, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3 235B-A22B accepts text; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images. 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: Qwen3 235B-A22B Apr 2025, Mistral Medium 3 May 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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