Magistral Small 2506 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Comparing Magistral Small 2506 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
Mistral AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Magistral Small 2506 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Magistral Small 2506
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2025
Choose Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Magistral Small 2506 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instructdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct has 456.0B more parameters than Magistral Small 2506, making it 1900.0% larger.
License
Usage and distribution terms
Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.
Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Magistral Small 2506 was released on 2025-06-10, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct was released on 2025-01-31.
Magistral Small 2506 is 4 months newer than Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.
Jun 10, 2025
1.2 years ago
4mo newerJan 31, 2025
1.6 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Magistral Small 2506 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-06-01, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Magistral Small 2506's training data extends to 2025-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date.
Jun 2025
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Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Magistral Small 2506 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Magistral Small 2506 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.