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Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

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

Which is better?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro). Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

  • you are already invested in the Mistral AI ecosystem

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Mistral AI
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
0 of 2
2 of 2
Input price
— / M
$0.15 / M
Output price
— / M
$1.50 / M
Context window
—
65,536
Released
Mar 2025
Sep 2025
License
Apache 2.0
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

2 benchmarks

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro).

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

56.0B diff

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking has 56.0B more parameters than Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct, making it 233.3% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
80.0Bparameters
24.0B
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
80.0B
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies input context (65,536 tokens). Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking specifies output context (65,536 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking does not.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

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 3.1 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct was released on 2025-03-17, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 6 months newer than Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Mar 17, 2025

1.4 years ago

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Sep 10, 2025

11 months ago

5mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

Which is better, Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct or Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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 3.1 24B Instruct compare to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking in benchmarks?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct scores HumanEval: 88.4%, MMLU: 80.6%, TriviaQA: 80.5%, MBPP: 74.7%, MATH: 69.3%. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking scores MMLU-Redux: 92.5%, IFEval: 88.9%, AIME 2025: 87.8%, WritingBench: 84.6%, MMLU-Pro: 82.7%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking supports 66K 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 3.1 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

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

Who makes Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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