Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct are closely matched at 3.7 and 2.0 on the LLM Stats Score. Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is 5.2x cheaper per token.
Mistral AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 3.7 and 2.0.
In the 7 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is roughly 5.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct also accepts a larger context window (131,072 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 3 24B Instruct
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 7 exact shared results
- cost matters — it's about 5.2x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025
Choose Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
- you process long inputs — it offers a 131,072 token context window
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
8 reported for Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct · 14 for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct outperforms in 4 benchmarks (Arena Hard, GPQA, IFEval, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (MATH, MT-Bench).
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct ($0.05/1M tokens) is 6.0x cheaper than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct ($0.30/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct ($0.08/1M tokens) is 3.8x cheaper than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct ($0.30/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is more expensive than Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has 16.4B more parameters than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct, making it 215.4% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct accepts 131,072 input tokens compared to Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct's 32,768 tokens. Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 32,768 tokens, while Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is limited to 8,192 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.
Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct was released on 2025-01-30, while Qwen2.5 7B Instruct was released on 2024-09-19.
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is 4 months newer than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.
Jan 30, 2025
1.8 years ago
4mo newerSep 19, 2024
2.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Qwen2.5 7B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2.5 7B Instruct's cutoff date.
Oct 2023
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Provider Availability
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Mistral AI. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is available from Together.
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.