The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Mistral Small 3 24B Base vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 13.9 to -0.3.

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

Which is better?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the overall LLM Stats Score 13.9 to -0.3, ranking #239 overall.

The models split the 2 individual benchmarks reported for both models evenly.

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

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Base

  • you are already invested in the Mistral AI ecosystem

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

  • overall performance matters — it scores 13.9 and ranks #239 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Mistral AI
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
-0.3
#326
13.9
#239
Reasoning
-0.3
#320
11.2
#256
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 2
1 of 2
Input price
— / M
$0.08 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.50 / M
Context window
—
131,072

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Math
4.5#280
11.9#235
Finance
4.9#172
15.0#124
Legal
8.4#139
14.5#110
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

9 reported for Mistral Small 3 24B Base · 46 for Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

2 shared

Mistral Small 3 24B Base outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MMLU), while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MMLU-Pro).

Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.

Sat Sep 12 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

14.6B diff

Mistral Small 3 24B Base has 14.6B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct, making it 162.2% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
23.6Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
9.0Bparameters
23.6B
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct specifies input context (131,072 tokens). Only Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Sat Sep 12 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Mistral Small 3 24B Base and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.

Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small 3 24B Base was released on 2025-01-30, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 8 months newer than Mistral Small 3 24B Base.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Jan 30, 2025

1.6 years ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

11 months ago

7mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3 24B Base has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Mistral Small 3 24B Base's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's cutoff date.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Oct 2023

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 3 24B Base and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small 3 24B Base vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct.

Which is better, Mistral Small 3 24B Base or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 13.9 to -0.3. Mistral Small 3 24B Base 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 capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mistral Small 3 24B Base compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

Mistral Small 3 24B Base scores ARC-C: 91.3%, GSM8k: 80.7%, MMLU: 80.7%, TriviaQA: 80.3%, MBPP: 69.6%. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral Small 3 24B Base and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 24B Base supports an unknown number of 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 Mistral Small 3 24B Base and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-0.3 vs 13.9). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mistral Small 3 24B Base and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 24B Base is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

Related comparisons