Mistral Small vs Qwen3.8 Max
Comparing Mistral Small and Qwen3.8 Max across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
Mistral AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mistral Small and Qwen3.8 Max trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.
On price, Mistral Small is roughly 8.3x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Qwen3.8 Max also accepts a larger context window (256,000 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 Mistral Small
- cost matters — it's about 8.3x cheaper per token
Choose Qwen3.8 Max
- you process long inputs — it offers a 256,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
0 reported for Mistral Small · 42 for Qwen3.8 Max
Mistral Small and Qwen3.8 Maxdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Mistral Small ($0.20/1M tokens) is 8.2x cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max ($1.65/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mistral Small ($0.60/1M tokens) is 8.3x cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max ($4.95/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Qwen3.8 Max is more expensive than Mistral Small.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3.8 Max has 2378.0B more parameters than Mistral Small, making it 10809.1% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Qwen3.8 Max accepts 256,000 input tokens compared to Mistral Small's 32,768 tokens. Qwen3.8 Max can generate longer responses up to 256,000 tokens, while Mistral Small is limited to 32,768 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Qwen3.8 Max supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mistral Small does not.
Qwen3.8 Max can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mistral Small
Qwen3.8 Max
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mistral Small is licensed under Mistral Research License, while Qwen3.8 Max uses Qwen3.8-Max License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Mistral Research License
Open weights
Qwen3.8-Max License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mistral Small was released on 2024-09-17, while Qwen3.8 Max was released on 2026-08-02.
Qwen3.8 Max is 23 months newer than Mistral Small.
Sep 17, 2024
2.0 years ago
Aug 2, 2026
1 months ago
1.9yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Mistral Small is available from Mistral AI. Qwen3.8 Max is available from DeepInfra, Fireworks, Novita, Together.
Mistral Small
Qwen3.8 Max
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mistral Small and Qwen3.8 Max side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mistral Small vs Qwen3.8 Max.