Model Comparison

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Ministral 8B Instruct is 1.8x cheaper per token.

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Mon May 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Ministral 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens) is 1.3x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.08/1M tokens).

For output processing, Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens) is 5.0x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

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

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Mon May 25 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 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.08
Output tokens$0.50
Best providerNovita
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Model Size

Parameter count comparison

980.2M diff

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct has 1.0B more parameters than Ministral 8B Instruct, making it 12.2% larger.

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
8.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
9.0Bparameters
8.0B
Ministral 8B Instruct
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct accepts 131,072 input tokens compared to Ministral 8B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Ministral 8B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is limited to 32,768 tokens.

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Mon May 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Ministral 8B Instruct is licensed under Mistral Research License, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

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

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

Ministral 8B Instruct

Oct 16, 2024

1.6 years ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

8 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 8B Instruct is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

Ministral 8B Instruct

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.08/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.18/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.69/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Less expensive output tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Larger context window (131,072 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Less expensive input tokens
Higher MMLU score (80.7% vs 65.0%)

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

FAQ

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

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Ministral 8B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 8B 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 Ministral 8B Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 1.3x cheaper for input tokens. Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output via mistral. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.08/M input and $0.50/M output via novita.

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

Ministral 8B Instruct supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports 131K 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 8B Instruct?

Key differences include context window (128K vs 131K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.08/M), 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 8B Instruct?

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