Model Comparison
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen2 72B InstructWhich is better in 2026?
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Verdict: Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen2 72B Instruct — which is better?
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct (by Mistral AI) and Qwen2 72B 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 3.2 24B Instruct outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MMLU). Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Choose Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 4 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2025
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct if…
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MMLU).
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen2 72B Instruct has 48.4B more parameters than Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct, making it 205.1% larger.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
Qwen2 72B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Qwen2 72B Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
tongyi-qianwen
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct was released on 2025-06-20, while Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct is 11 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Jun 20, 2025
1.1 years ago
11mo newerJul 23, 2024
2.0 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date.
Oct 2023
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Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
Qwen2 72B Instruct
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Detailed Comparison
Interactive Arena
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct and Qwen2 72B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
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FAQ
Common questions about Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen2 72B Instruct.
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