Mistral Small 4 vs QwQ-32B
Mistral Small 4 and QwQ-32B are closely matched at 19.0 and 14.8 on the LLM Stats Score.
Mistral AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mistral Small 4 and QwQ-32B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 19.0 and 14.8.
In the 2 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 4 wins 2; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Mistral Small 4
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 2 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2026
Choose QwQ-32B
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
9 reported for Mistral Small 4 · 7 for QwQ-32B
Mistral Small 4 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (GPQA, LiveCodeBench), while QwQ-32B is better at 0 benchmarks.
Mistral Small 4 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Mistral Small 4 has 86.5B more parameters than QwQ-32B, making it 266.2% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Mistral Small 4 specifies input context (256,000 tokens). Only Mistral Small 4 specifies output context (256,000 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Mistral Small 4 supports multimodal inputs, whereas QwQ-32B does not.
Mistral Small 4 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Mistral Small 4
QwQ-32B
License
Usage and distribution terms
Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.
Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mistral Small 4 was released on 2026-03-16, while QwQ-32B was released on 2025-03-05.
Mistral Small 4 is 13 months newer than QwQ-32B.
Mar 16, 2026
6 months ago
1.0yr newerMar 5, 2025
1.5 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
QwQ-32B has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-11-28, while Mistral Small 4's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm QwQ-32B's training data extends to 2024-11-28, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mistral Small 4's cutoff date.
—
Nov 2024
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mistral Small 4 and QwQ-32B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mistral Small 4 vs QwQ-32B.