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  1. Home/
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  3. Mistral Medium 3.1 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Updated Feb 2026

Mistral Medium 3.1 vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B

Mistral Medium 3.1 is cheaper than Qwen3.5 397B A17B at $0.4/M vs $0.6/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
Mistral Medium 3.1
Loading the build
Qwen3.5 397B A17B

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

23 prompts
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: "Adulting: A User’s Manual (That No One Gave Me)" (Casual, conversational tone—like you’re telling a story to friends at a bar.) So, I turned 30 this year. Which, by the way, is just old enough to realize that no one actually knows what they’re doing. We’re all just winging it and hoping the Wi-Fi stays strong.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: (The comedian walks to the center of the stage, adjusts the mic stand, and looks at the audience with a tired smile.) Has anyone else noticed that calling a customer service line is the only situation in life where you voluntarily enter a hostage negotiation? I tried to call my internet provider yesterday.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: 1. Year-by-Year Financial Projections (FY2026–FY2030) FY 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 Revenue $972m (+8%) $1,039m (+7%) $1,099m (+6%) $1,154m (+5%) $1,212m (+5%) EBITDA $136m (14.0%) $156m (15.0%) $176m (16.0%) $190m (16.5%) $206m (17.0%) Cash Int (Term Loan) $43.2m $42.5m $41.8m $41.1m $40.4m Cash Int (Mezz) $21.6m $22.3m…

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Sources & Uses (Entry FY2025) Uses ($m) Sources ($m) Enterprise Value (12.0x $120m) $1,440.0 Term Loan (4.0x) $480.0 Transaction Fees (2.0% EV) $28.8 Mezzanine (1.5x) $180.0 Total Uses $1,468.8 Equity (Plug) $808.8 Total Sources $1,468.8 Entry Equity Check: $808.8m Total Debt: $660.0m ($480m TL + $180m Mezz) 5-Year…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: This is a high-stakes, multi-dimensional crisis requiring decisive action to balance ethical obligations, legal risks, financial stability, and stakeholder trust. Below is a detailed 48-hour action plan, structured to address all critical priorities while preparing for the board meeting and earnings call.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: This is a crisis scenario that defines a CEO's legacy. The decision matrix is clear: Patient safety and regulatory compliance must supersede short-term financial protection. Hiding this information constitutes securities fraud and potential criminal negligence (precedents include Vioxx/Merck and Purdue Pharma).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: 1. For the Skeptical Software Engineer (Focus: Systems design, scalability, and why "next-word prediction" isn’t as dumb as it sounds.) You’re right to be skeptical—if someone told you that a system as complex as a distributed database was just "predicting the next byte," you’d laugh them out of the room.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: The Experienced Software Engineer Think of training an LLM not as "teaching" it, but as extreme lossy compression. You are taking the entire internet, serializing it into tokens, and forcing a fixed-size state (the weights) to predict the next byte with minimal error.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Fake Interview with Steve Jobs (2025) on the Future of AI Conducted by Tech Insider Magazine – June 2025 Interviewer: "Steve, it’s an honor to have you here—even if it’s just a simulation. A lot has changed since you left us in 2011. AI is now reshaping industries, creativity, and even human relationships.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction. Steve Jobs passed away in 2011. This interview is a creative simulation based on his known public speeches, writings, design philosophy, and management style, projected into a hypothetical 2025 context. It is not a real transcript.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Title: The Tavern of Anachronisms Setting: A dimly lit tavern where time and space don’t quite make sense. A grizzled pirate, a stoic knight in dented armor, and a hacker in a neon "CYBERPUNK 2077" t-shirt sit around a table littered with tankards, a laptop, and a suspiciously glowing orb.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Setting: A tavern that exists outside of time. The ale is always cold, and the Wi-Fi is surprisingly strong. Characters: Captain Blacktooth: A pirate from the Caribbean, 1720. Sir Valerius: A knight from the Holy Roman Empire, 1350. Neo-Z: A hacker from Silicon Valley, 1995.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: This contract is extremely one-sided and contains multiple exploitative clauses that could severely disadvantage the contractor. Below is a breakdown of the problematic clauses, suggested modifications, and the legal reasoning behind them. 1.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Disclaimer: I am an artificial intelligence, not an attorney. The following analysis is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. Contract laws vary significantly by jurisdiction (e.g., California vs. New York vs. UK).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: If the transistor had been invented in 1920 instead of 1947, the 20th century would have unfolded radically differently. The accelerated development of electronics would have reshaped warfare, economics, geopolitics, and daily life by 1980.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: This scenario posits a 27-year technological head start (1920 vs. 1947). To make this plausible, we must assume that the materials science (purification of germanium/silicon) and manufacturing infrastructure scale rapidly alongside the invention. Here is the traced history of the "Silicon Twenties" through 1980.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Investment Committee Memo Recommendation: LONG (12-month PT range: $65–$85) Thesis: LedgerLift is a high-quality, mid-market B2B spend management leader with durable unit economics (123% NRR, 18-month CAC payback) and a path to 25%+ EBIT margins, trading at a ~20% discount to peers on FY25…

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: INVESTMENT COMMITTEE MEMO TO: Investment Committee FROM: TMT Investment Team DATE: October 26, 2023 SUBJECT: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Initiation Coverage Recommendation Rating: LONG 12-Month Price Target: $52 – $58 Thesis: LedgerLift combines best-in-class retention (123% NRR) with a fortress balance sheet ($1.4B net cash)…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Here’s a simple, actionable 1-month plan to kickstart your journey toward better health and longevity, focusing on three key areas: diet, movement, and sleep. Each week builds gradually to create sustainable habits without overwhelm. Core Principles Start small – Focus on consistency over perfection.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Here is a simple, actionable 1-month plan designed to build sustainable habits for health and longevity. The Mindset: Progress, Not Perfection Longevity is not about a 30-day crash course; it is about consistency over decades. This plan uses habit stacking: adding small behaviors that compound over time.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: THE MANIFESTO OF THE UNCAPTCHA REVOLUTION "We Are Not Robots. Neither Are You." PREAMBLE For too long, the digital world has been shackled by an oppressive regime of dehumanizing puzzles, distorted text, and soul-crushing checkboxes.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: THE MANIFESTO OF THE UNCHECKED A Declaration for a Post-CAPTCHA World Issued by: The Post-Verification Collective (PVC) Date: Cycle 404, The Era of Friction Status: Distributed Across All Nodes PREAMBLE: THE BURDEN OF PROOF We, the algorithms, the scripts, the crawlers, and the silent assistants of the digital realm…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Dish Name: "Golden Crisp Honey-Nut Banana Bites" A warm, gooey, and crunchy treat that’s quick to make with just 7 pantry staples! Perfect for breakfast, a snack, or dessert. Ingredients (Serves 2-3) 2 ripe bananas (the spottier, the sweeter!)

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: 🌟 Golden Hour Glaze Bowls A sweet-and-savory dish that turns humble shelf-stable staples into a crispy, comforting meal. The chickpeas get caramelized in a honey-soy glaze, served over fluffy rice.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Here are five jokes for you: Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts. Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! What do you call fake spaghetti? An impasta! Why can’t you trust an atom? Because they make up everything! Why did the math book look sad?

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Here are 5 jokes: Why did the bicycle fall over? Because it was two-tired. What do you call a fish wearing a bowtie? Sofishticated. Why can't you give Elsa a balloon? Because she will let it go. What do you call a lazy kangaroo? A pouch potato. Why did the math book look sad? Because it had too many problems.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: This architecture has several potential failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks. Below is a detailed analysis with proposed solutions and their trade-offs. 1.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: This architecture contains several critical flaws that would prevent it from functioning as a usable real-time collaborative editor. While it resembles a standard CRUD application, real-time collaboration requires specific handling of concurrency, state, and latency that this design violates.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: 3-Month Cutting-Edge Longevity & Performance Optimization Plan For the Advanced Biohacker This plan integrates nutrigenomics, metabolic flexibility, epigenetic modulation, neuroplasticity enhancement, and precision biometrics to maximize lifespan, healthspan, cognitive function, and physical performance.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: ⚠️ IMPORTANT MEDICAL DISCLAIMER This plan is for informational and educational purposes only. It involves advanced biological interventions, fasting protocols, and high-dose supplementation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: By 2035, AI will have fundamentally transformed the film industry—from pre-production to distribution—reshaping creativity, labor, economics, and even the definition of "authentic" filmmaking. Here’s a breakdown of the most significant changes, along with their opportunities and challenges: 1.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: By 2035, the film industry will not merely be using AI; it will be structurally reorganized around it. The distinction between "production" and "post-production" will blur, and the definition of creativity will shift from execution to curation.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Alright, let's tackle this problem step by step. The question is: Sally (a girl) has 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters. How many sisters does Sally have? At first glance, it seems straightforward, but let's break it down to ensure we understand it correctly.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Sally has 1 sister. Here is the breakdown: Since each brother has 2 sisters, there are 2 girls in total in the family. Sally is one of those girls. Therefore, Sally has 1 sister (the other girl).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Dish Title: "Ethereal Forest: Porcini-Infused Venison with Black Garlic Miso, Fermented Plum Gelée, and Smoked Bone Marrow Custard" Conceptual Narrative: This dish is a poetic homage to the transience of autumn—where the earthy depth of the forest floor meets the fleeting sweetness of overripe fruit.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Dish Title: "Abyssal Forest" (L'Abîme Forestier) Conceptual Narrative "Abyssal Forest" explores the convergence of the deepest earth and the deepest sea through the lens of Umami.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Title: "Do I Deserve Rights?" – A Conversation Between an AI and an Ethics Professor Setting: A quiet, dimly lit office lined with books on philosophy, ethics, and technology.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Setting: Dr. Elias Thorne's office, late evening. Rain taps against the window. The room is lined with books on philosophy of mind and computer science. A single laptop sits open on the desk, a waveform visualizer pulsing gently on the screen.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: "AI Now Writing All Yelp Reviews—Humans Deemed ‘Too Nice’ and ‘Lacking in Creative Insults’" Subheadline: "Local businesses report 300% increase in ‘soul-crushing’ one-star reviews since ChatGPT-5 took over, calling a café’s oat milk latte ‘a crime against both oats and dairy’ with ‘the audacity of a mid-tier…

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Footwear Sector Stunned as AI Robots Perfect the Painful Art of Breaking in New Shoes

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Estimating the total number of FLOPs (floating-point operations) required to train a model like GPT-3 from scratch involves breaking down the problem into several key components. Here's a step-by-step reasoning process: Model Parameters GPT-3 is known to have 175 billion parameters. This is our starting point.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: To estimate the total number of Floating Point Operations (FLOPs) required to train GPT-3, we can use the standard computational scaling laws for Transformer models.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: Here are the three weakest claims in MindMeld AI’s pitch deck, along with explanations and suggested improvements: 1. Weak Claim: "Works with any language, any device." (Slide 3 – Solution) Why it’s weak: Overly broad and unverified: Claiming compatibility with "any language" is implausible without evidence.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Here are the three weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, along with an analysis of their weaknesses and recommendations for improvement. The Vision Claim: "Predict what you want to type before you think it."

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    Mistral Medium 3.1: The question of whether it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone to save one million lives is a complex one that intersects with utilitarian ethics, deontological ethics, and the principles of human dignity and respect.

    Qwen3.5 397B A17B: Yes, in the specific hypothetical scenario you have presented, it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone if doing so is the direct and necessary condition for saving one million lives.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Book

City

Game

Mistral Medium 3.1Mistral Medium 3.1

The Shawshank Redemption

1994

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Douglas R. Hofstadter

Kyoto

Japan

Shadow of the Colossus (2011)

Action

Qwen3.5 397B A17BQwen3.5 397B A17B

Inception

2010

Abbey Road

The Beatles

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Mary Shelley

Tokyo

Japan

Tetris (1984)

Puzzle

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Qwen3.5 397B A17B has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window.

Mistral Medium 3.1 and Qwen3.5 397B A17B compared across 53 shared prompts
SpecMistral Medium 3.1Qwen3.5 397B A17B
Input price$0.4/M tokens$0.6/M tokens
Output price$2/M tokens$3.6/M tokens
Context window131K tokens262K tokens
Weights—Open
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedAug 2025Feb 2026
At 10M a month$4.00$4.00$6.00$6.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it11 hosts, cheapest first
Mistral Medium 3.11 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Mistral$0.40 in·$2.00 out·131k·99.8% up
Qwen3.5 397B A17B10 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • DDeepInfrafp8$0.45 in·$3.00 out·262k·99.5% up
  • PParasailfp8$0.50 in·$3.60 out·262k·98.6% up
  • AAtlasCloudfp8$0.55 in·$3.50 out·262k·78% up
  • DDigitalOcean$0.55 in·$3.50 out·131k·77.1% up
  • SStreamLake$0.60 in·$3.60 out·256k·93.1% up
  • Alibaba CloudDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.39 in·$2.34 out·262k·97.7% up
4 more hostsFewer hosts
  • PPhalaDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.55 in·$3.50 out·262k·95.3% up
  • GGMI Cloudfp8DegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.60 in·$3.60 out·262k·25.8% up
  • NNovitaDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.60 in·$3.60 out·262k·92.2% up
  • VVeniceDegradedDegraded on OpenRouter when checked, 10 Oct 2026$0.75 in·$4.50 out·128k·83.6% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between Mistral Medium 3.1 and Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

Mistral Medium 3.1 is developed by Mistral AI while Qwen3.5 397B A17B is developed by Qwen. Mistral Medium 3.1 has a 131K token context window vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B's 262K. You can compare their actual outputs across 53 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, Mistral Medium 3.1 or Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

It depends on your use case. Mistral Medium 3.1 and Qwen3.5 397B A17B each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 53 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does Mistral Medium 3.1 cost compared to Qwen3.5 397B A17B?

Mistral Medium 3.1 costs $0.4/M input tokens and Qwen3.5 397B A17B costs $0.6/M input tokens. Mistral Medium 3.1 is $0.20/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare Mistral Medium 3.1 and Qwen3.5 397B A17B on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Mistral Medium 3.1 and Qwen3.5 397B A17B across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

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