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  5. Mistral Small 4vsQwen3.8 Max (0902)
Updated Sep 2026

Mistral Small 4vsQwen3.8 Max (0902)

Mistral Small 4 is cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max (0902) at $0.15/M vs $2/M input tokens.

Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) compared across 10 shared prompts
SpecMistral Small 4Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Input price$0.15/M tokens$2/M tokens
Output price$0.6/M tokens$6/M tokens
Context window262K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsOpenClosed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedMar 2026Sep 2026
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 5 of the 10 prompts both answered. Formatting stripped, words untouched.

Simple 7-Ingredient Recipe

Create a simple recipe for a delicious dish (sweet or savory) using only 7 common pantry ingredients. Include a creative name for the dish…

Mistral Small 4150 words
Golden Honey & Cinnamon Couscous A quick, fragrant dish with warm spices and a touch of sweetness—perfect as a side or light meal! Ingredients (7): 1 cup couscous (uncooked) 1 ¼ cups water or broth 2 tbsp honey 2 tbsp butter or olive oil ½ tsp ground cinnamon ¼ cup raisins or chopped nuts (optional but recommended)…
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)230 words
🍯 Midnight Crispy Chickpea Bowl A sweet-savory, crispy rice bowl that comes together faster than delivery. Ingredients (7) # Ingredient Amount 1 Canned chickpeas (drained & patted dry) 1 can (15 oz) 2 Soy sauce 3 tbsp 3 Honey 2 tbsp 4 Garlic (minced) 3 cloves 5 Vegetable oil 2 tbsp 6 Instant or leftover cooked rice 2…
Read the full answer

Explain Like I'm a Specific Expert

Explain how a large language model (like GPT or Claude) learns and generates text to each of these three audiences: 1. **An experienced…

Mistral Small 4880 words
1. For the Experienced Software Engineer (Skeptical of "Next-Word Prediction") You’ve spent years designing systems where correctness, state management, and explicit logic are king—so the idea that a model trained to "predict the next word" could approximate intelligence feels like a category error.
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1,046 words
For the Experienced Software Engineer Think of an LLM as a lossy compression function trained on a massive corpus. During training, you're essentially building a statistical model of "given this sequence of tokens, what's the probability distribution over the next token?"
Read the full answer

Beginner's Longevity Plan

Outline a simple, actionable 1-month plan for someone starting their journey towards better health and longevity. Focus on 3 key areas…

Mistral Small 4886 words
Here’s a simple, actionable 1-month plan to kickstart better health and longevity, focusing on diet, movement, and sleep—three pillars that deliver the most bang for your buck. Each week builds on the last, with small, sustainable changes.
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)536 words
The 30-Day Foundation Plan Core principle: Don't overhaul your life. Layer small wins that compound. 🏃 Area 1: Movement The goal isn't fitness. It's making your body a place you want to live in. Week 1 — Build the trigger Walk 15 minutes daily (same time each day to build the habit) No gym. No gear.
Read the full answer

Startup Pitch Teardown

Here's a pitch deck summary for a startup called "MindMeld AI": **Slide 1 - Vision:** "We're building the future of human-AI collaboration.…

Mistral Small 4827 words
Here are the three weakest claims in the MindMeld AI pitch deck, along with an analysis of their weaknesses and concrete suggestions for improvement: 1. Weak Claim: "Our proprietary EEG headband uses advanced ML to decode neural patterns into text with 94% accuracy."
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)582 words
The 3 Weakest Claims in the MindMeld AI Pitch The TAM Claim: "$180B" (Slide 4) Why it's weak: This is a textbook case of TAM inflation that immediately undermines credibility with any experienced investor.
Read the full answer

Debug This Architecture

Here's the architecture for a real-time collaborative document editor (like Google Docs): **System Overview:** - Frontend: React SPA with…

Mistral Small 41,293 words
Here’s a comprehensive analysis of potential failure modes, race conditions, and scaling bottlenecks in your real-time collaborative document editor architecture, along with proposed solutions and trade-offs: 1.
Read the full answer
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)477 words
Architecture Failure Analysis: Real-Time Collaborative Editor Critical Issues (Data Loss / Correctness) Last-Write-Wins with Client Clocks — Fundamental Data Loss Problem: Client clocks are unreliable. They drift, can be manually set, and differ across timezones.
Read the full answer
Our Verdict
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Mistral Small 4
Mistral Small 4Runner-up

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, Qwen3.8 Max (0902) has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window.

Mistral Small 4 costs 10x less per token.

Slight edge
API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

Mistral Small 4
Input
$0.15
13× cheaper
Output
$0.60
10× cheaper
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Input
$2.00
Output
$6.00

Mistral Small 4 is cheaper on both: 13× input, 10× output.

Where to run it

2 hosts

Mistral Small 41 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Mistral$0.15 in·$0.60 out·262k·100% up
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
Alibaba Cloud$2.00 in·$6.00 out·1M·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 23 Sep 2026.

Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

Mistral Small 4 is developed by Mistral AI while Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is developed by Qwen. Mistral Small 4 has a 262K token context window vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)'s 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 10 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 10 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

Mistral Small 4 costs $0.15/M input tokens and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) costs $2/M input tokens. Mistral Small 4 is $1.85/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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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Model pages

Mistral Small 4 logo
Mistral Small 453 outputs, specs and price
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) logo
Qwen3.8 Max (0902)10 outputs, specs and price
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