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Ministral 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking leads the LLM Stats Score 12.9 to -4.7. Ministral 8B Instruct is 3.3x cheaper per token.

Mistral AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking leads the overall LLM Stats Score 12.9 to -4.7, ranking #248 overall.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Ministral 8B Instruct is roughly 3.3x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking also accepts a larger context window (262,144 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Ministral 8B Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 3.3x cheaper per token

Choose Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

  • overall performance matters — it scores 12.9 and ranks #248 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 262,144 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Ministral 8B Instruct
Mistral AI
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
-4.7
#351
12.9
#248
Reasoning
-4.8
#342
14.0
#230
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 1
1 of 1
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$0.10 / M
$1.00 / M
Context window
128,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Ministral 8B Instruct
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Math
-4.1#316
15.6#216
Legal
-8.0#203
15.9#98
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

11 reported for Ministral 8B Instruct · 48 for Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

1 shared

Ministral 8B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is better at 1 benchmark (MMLU).

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sun Sep 13 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Ministral 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens) costs the same as Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens) is 10.0x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking ($1.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Sun Sep 13 2026 • llm-stats.com
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.10
Best providerMistral
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$1.00
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

4.0B diff

Ministral 8B Instruct has 4.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking, making it 100.5% larger.

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
8.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
4.0Bparameters
8.0B
Ministral 8B Instruct
4.0B
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to Ministral 8B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Ministral 8B Instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Sun Sep 13 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas Ministral 8B Instruct does not.

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Ministral 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Ministral 8B Instruct is licensed under Mistral Research License, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking uses Apache 2.0.

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

Ministral 8B Instruct

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Ministral 8B Instruct was released on 2024-10-16, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is 11 months newer than Ministral 8B Instruct.

Ministral 8B Instruct

Oct 16, 2024

1.9 years ago

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

Sep 22, 2025

11 months ago

11mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Ministral 8B Instruct is available from Mistral AI. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is available from DeepInfra.

Ministral 8B Instruct

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.00/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Ministral 8B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Ministral 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking.

Which is better, Ministral 8B Instruct or Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking leads the LLM Stats Score 12.9 to -4.7. Ministral 8B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Ministral 8B Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking in benchmarks?

Ministral 8B Instruct scores MT-Bench: 83.0%, Winogrande: 75.3%, ARC-C: 71.9%, Arena Hard: 70.9%, MBPP pass@1: 70.0%. Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking scores DocVQAtest: 94.2%, ScreenSpot: 92.9%, MMBench-V1.1: 86.7%, MMLU-Redux: 86.0%, AI2D: 84.9%.

Is Ministral 8B Instruct cheaper than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

Both models cost $0.10 per million input tokens.

What are the context window sizes for Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

Ministral 8B Instruct supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-4.7 vs 12.9), context window (128K vs 262K), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Mistral Research License vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Ministral 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking?

Ministral 8B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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