Qwen3 8B vs Mistral Medium 3 vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3 8B 56, DeepSeek V3 0324 54, Mistral Medium 3 53). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 8B
56/100- ECI136.2
- Price$0.18 / $0.70
- Context131K
Mistral AIMistral Medium 3
53/100- ECI134.1
- Price$0.40 / $2.00
- Context131K
DeepSeekDeepSeek V3 0324
54/100- ECI135.9
- Price$0.24 / $0.90
- Context164K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3 8B 56/100, DeepSeek V3 0324 54/100, Mistral Medium 3 53/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 8B for raw capability and DeepSeek V3 0324 for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3 8BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 8B 136.2 · DeepSeek V3 0324 135.9 · Mistral Medium 3 134.1
- Lowest priceQwen3 8BQwen3 8B $0.31 · DeepSeek V3 0324 $0.405 · Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextDeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek V3 0324 163,840 · Qwen3 8B 131,072 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsMistral Medium 3Qwen3 8B: Text · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · DeepSeek V3 0324: Text
- Self-hostingQwen3 8B and DeepSeek V3 0324Publishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Qwen3 8B | Mistral Medium 3 | DeepSeek V3 0324 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 61 | 58 | 60 |
| Price | 25% | 74 | 54 | 68 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 35 | 50 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 28 |
| Overall | 100% | 56/100 | 53/100 | 54/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen3 8BAlibaba (Qwen) | Mistral Medium 3Mistral AI | DeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 136.2 (best) | 134.1 | 135.9 |
| ECI rank | #113 of 148 (best) | #117 of 148 | #114 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 56.8% | 59.5% | 67.6% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 56.1% (best) | 32.2% | 37.8% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.18 (best) | $0.40 | $0.24 |
| Output | $0.70 (best) | $2.00 | $0.90 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.31 (best) | $0.80 | $0.405 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Alibaba API | Official Mistral API | Median of 5 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 131,072 tokens | 163,840 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens | 131,072 tokens | 163,840 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | qwen3-8b | mistral-medium-2505 | — |
| API providers | 1 | 5 (best) | 5 (best) |
| Released | Apr 28, 2025 | May 7, 2025 | Mar 24, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Apr 2025 | May 2025 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Qwen3 8B$3.20
- Mistral Medium 3$8.00
- DeepSeek V3 0324$4.20
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen3 8B, Mistral Medium 3 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3 8B 56/100, DeepSeek V3 0324 54/100, Mistral Medium 3 53/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 8B for raw capability and DeepSeek V3 0324 for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 8B, Mistral Medium 3 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 input / $0.70 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). DeepSeek V3 0324 costs $0.24 input / $0.90 output per million tokens (median across 5 API providers); 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 $0.405 for DeepSeek V3 0324 (1.3× as much) and $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), DeepSeek V3 0324 135.9 (#114 of 148) and Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (129.7–138.1 vs 132.4–138.0), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — DeepSeek V3 0324 67.6%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%, Qwen3 8B 56.8%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 8B 56.1%, DeepSeek V3 0324 37.8%, Mistral Medium 3 32.2%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3 8B, Mistral Medium 3 and DeepSeek V3 0324 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. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
DeepSeek V3 0324 has the largest context window at 163,840 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3 8B and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: Qwen3 8B up to 8,192, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, DeepSeek V3 0324 up to 163,840 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen3 8B accepts text; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; DeepSeek V3 0324 accepts text. Mistral Medium 3 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Qwen3 8B and DeepSeek V3 0324 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; DeepSeek V3 0324 came out Mar 24, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3 8B 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.
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