Model Comparison

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen2.5-Coder 7B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Verdict: Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct — which is better?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct (by Mistral AI) and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B 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.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct outperforms in 2 benchmarks (MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (HumanEval). Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025

Choose Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct if…

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct outperforms in 2 benchmarks (MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (HumanEval).

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Wed Jul 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

17.0B diff

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has 17.0B more parameters than Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct, making it 242.9% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct
7.0Bparameters
24.0B
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
7.0B
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies input context (32,000 tokens). Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies output context (32,000 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Input32,000 tokens
Output32,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Wed Jul 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

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 Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct

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-Coder 7B Instruct was released on 2024-09-19.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is 4 months newer than Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Jan 30, 2025

1.5 years ago

4mo newer
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct

Sep 19, 2024

1.8 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-Coder 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-Coder 7B Instruct's cutoff date.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion

Key Takeaways

Larger context window (32,000 tokens)
Higher MATH score (70.6% vs 46.6%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (66.3% vs 40.1%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Higher HumanEval score (88.4% vs 84.8%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct.

Which is better, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct or Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B 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 Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct compare to Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct in benchmarks?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct scores Arena Hard: 87.6%, HumanEval: 84.8%, MT-Bench: 83.5%, IFEval: 82.9%, MATH: 70.6%. Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct scores HumanEval: 88.4%, GSM8k: 83.9%, MBPP: 83.5%, HellaSwag: 76.8%, Winogrande: 72.9%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct supports 32K tokens and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

Who makes Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.