Model Comparison

Mistral Small vs Qwen2-VL-72B-InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Comparing Mistral Small and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Verdict: Mistral Small vs Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct — which is better?

Mistral Small (by Mistral AI) and Qwen2-VL-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.

Choose Mistral Small if…

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2024

Choose Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct if…

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
Want to compare interactively?Try the playground

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Mistral Small and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct don't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

51.4B diff

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has 51.4B more parameters than Mistral Small, making it 233.6% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small
22.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
73.4Bparameters
22.0B
Mistral Small
73.4B
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small specifies input context (32,768 tokens). Only Mistral Small specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral Small
Input32,768 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Tue Jun 09 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mistral Small does not.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mistral Small

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mistral Small is licensed under Mistral Research License, while Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.

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

Mistral Small

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small was released on 2024-09-17, while Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct was released on 2024-08-29.

Mistral Small is 1 month newer than Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Mistral Small

Sep 17, 2024

1.7 years ago

2w newer
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Aug 29, 2024

1.8 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-06-30, while Mistral Small's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct's training data extends to 2023-06-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mistral Small's cutoff date.

Mistral Small

—

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Jun 2023

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Mistral AI
Larger context window (32,768 tokens)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Supports multimodal inputs

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Mistral Small
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small vs Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Which is better, Mistral Small or Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Mistral Small (Mistral AI) and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Mistral Small compare to Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct in benchmarks?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.5%, VCR_en_easy: 91.9%, ChartQA: 88.3%, OCRBench: 87.7%, MMBench: 86.5%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral Small and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Mistral Small supports 33K tokens and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Mistral Small and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

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

Who makes Mistral Small and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Mistral Small is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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