Model Comparison

Magistral Medium vs Qwen2 72B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Magistral Medium significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Magistral Medium vs Qwen2 72B Instruct — which is better?

Magistral Medium (by Mistral AI) and Qwen2 72B Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Magistral Medium outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Magistral Medium significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Magistral Medium if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2025

Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct if…

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Magistral Medium outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Magistral Medium significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Mon Jun 15 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

48.0B diff

Qwen2 72B Instruct has 48.0B more parameters than Magistral Medium, making it 200.0% larger.

Mistral AI
Magistral Medium
24.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 72B Instruct
72.0Bparameters
24.0B
Magistral Medium
72.0B
Qwen2 72B Instruct

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Magistral Medium supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.

Magistral Medium can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Magistral Medium

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen2 72B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Magistral Medium is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Qwen2 72B Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Magistral Medium

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen2 72B Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Magistral Medium was released on 2025-06-10, while Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.

Magistral Medium is 11 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.

Magistral Medium

Jun 10, 2025

1.0 years ago

10mo newer
Qwen2 72B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

1.9 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Magistral Medium has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-06-01, while Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Magistral Medium's training data extends to 2025-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date.

Magistral Medium

Jun 2025

Qwen2 72B Instruct

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Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Mistral AI
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (70.8% vs 42.4%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen2 72B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

No standout differentiators in the data we have for this pair.

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Magistral Medium
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 72B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Magistral Medium vs Qwen2 72B Instruct.

Which is better, Magistral Medium or Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Magistral Medium significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Magistral Medium is made by Mistral AI and Qwen2 72B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Magistral Medium compare to Qwen2 72B Instruct in benchmarks?

Magistral Medium scores AIME 2024: 73.6%, GPQA: 70.8%, AIME 2025: 64.9%, LiveCodeBench: 50.3%, Aider-Polyglot: 47.1%. Qwen2 72B Instruct scores GSM8k: 91.1%, CMMLU: 90.1%, HellaSwag: 87.6%, HumanEval: 86.0%, Winogrande: 85.1%.

What are the main differences between Magistral Medium and Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs tongyi-qianwen). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Magistral Medium and Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Magistral Medium is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen2 72B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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