Model Comparison

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-ThinkingWhich is better in 2026?

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

Verdict: Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking — which is better?

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct (by Mistral AI) and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking (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 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.

Choose Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct if…

  • you are already invested in the Mistral AI ecosystem

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking if…

  • 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
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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

2 benchmarks

Mistral Small 3.2 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.

Thu Jun 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

56.4B diff

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking has 56.4B more parameters than Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct, making it 239.0% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
23.6Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
80.0Bparameters
23.6B
Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 24B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Thu Jun 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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

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 3.2 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 3.2 24B Instruct was released on 2025-06-20, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 3 months newer than Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct.

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Jun 20, 2025

1.0 years ago

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Sep 10, 2025

9 months ago

2mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking'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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's cutoff date.

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

—

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Mistral AI
Supports multimodal inputs
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Larger context window (65,536 tokens)
Higher GPQA score (77.2% vs 46.1%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (82.7% vs 69.1%)

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

Which is better, Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct or Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 24B Instruct compare to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking in benchmarks?

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct scores DocVQA: 94.9%, AI2D: 92.9%, HumanEval Plus: 92.9%, ChartQA: 87.4%, IF: 84.8%. 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 3.2 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 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 3.2 24B Instruct and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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