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Model Comparison

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen3.8 MaxWhich is better in 2026?

Qwen3.8 Max significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct vs Qwen3.8 Max — which is better?

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct (by Mistral AI) and Qwen3.8 Max (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 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.8 Max is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA). Qwen3.8 Max significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Qwen3.8 Max if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.8 Max is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).

Qwen3.8 Max significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Aug 07 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

2376.0B diff

Qwen3.8 Max has 2376.0B more parameters than Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct, making it 9900.0% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8 Max
2.4Tparameters
24.0B
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
2400.0B
Qwen3.8 Max

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
Qwen3.8 Max
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Fri Aug 07 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3.8 Max supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct does not.

Qwen3.8 Max can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.8 Max

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Qwen3.8 Max uses a proprietary license.

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

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3.8 Max

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct was released on 2025-01-30, while Qwen3.8 Max was released on 2026-08-02.

Qwen3.8 Max is 18 months newer than Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Jan 30, 2025

1.5 years ago

Qwen3.8 Max

Aug 2, 2026

5 days ago

1.5yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Qwen3.8 Max'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 Qwen3.8 Max's cutoff date.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Qwen3.8 Max

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Mistral AI
Larger context window (32,000 tokens)
Has open weights
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3.8 Max

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (92.6% vs 45.3%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

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

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.8 Max
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8 Max

FAQ

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

Which is better, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct or Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Qwen3.8 Max 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 Qwen3.8 Max 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%. Qwen3.8 Max scores PaperBench: 93.0%, GPQA: 92.6%, VideoMME w sub.: 90.4%, RealWorldQA: 88.0%, Terminal-Bench 2.1: 86.6%.

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

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct supports 32K tokens and Qwen3.8 Max 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 3 24B Instruct and Qwen3.8 Max?

Key differences include multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct and Qwen3.8 Max?

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

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