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Head-to-head comparison

Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3.5-9B

Mistral Small 4 (Mistral AI) and Qwen3.5-9B (Qwen) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 9 September 2026

As of 9 September 2026, Mistral Small 4 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#96 vs #97); and Qwen3.5-9B is 4× cheaper per output token ($0.15/1M vs $0.60/1M).

Which should you choose?

Choose Mistral Small 4 if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #96 against #97 (41.1 vs 41.1 points).
  • you want the more recently listed model — Mistral Small 4 was listed 16 March 2026, Qwen3.5-9B 10 March 2026.

Choose Qwen3.5-9B if…

  • API cost matters — $0.15/1M output tokens against $0.60/1M, about 4× cheaper.
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.10/1M against $0.15/1M.
  • you want provider choice — 6 listed API providers against 2.
  • AA Terminal-Bench 2.1 is your yardstick — 29.2% against 21.0%.

Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3.5-9B: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.5-9B
FieldMistral Small 4Mistral AIQwen3.5-9BQwen
ModelCap Index position#96#97
Index score41.141.1
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokens$0.15$0.10
Output price / 1M tokens$0.60$0.15
Context window262K tokens262K tokens
Max output tokens210K236K
API providers listed26
Weight accessOpen weightsOpen weights
Input modalitiesText, ImageText, Image, Video
First listed16 March 202610 March 2026
PublisherMistral AIQwen

Evidence: 1 public benchmark observation across 1 board · publisher-corpus-prior over 182 held-out anchors (30%); launch card against 3 resolved peers on 10 rows (70%); exceeds every named peer on 4 of 10 rows; optimism haircut 0.6 from cross-lab-probe; shrunk 3.7 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3.5-9B

Public benchmark boards where Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3.5-9B has a published result
BoardMistral Small 4Qwen3.5-9BLeads
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis11.5intelligence-index:v4.3:reasoning-unspecified—Only one result
AA Terminal-Bench 2.1Artificial Analysis21.0%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Mistral Small 4":reasoning=true29.2%terminal-bench:2.1:terminus-2:e2b:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=trueQwen3.5-9B
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis—86.8%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=trueOnly one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis—14.9%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Qwen3.5 9B":reasoning=trueOnly one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3.5-9B: common questions

Is Mistral Small 4 better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Mistral Small 4 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 9 September 2026: #96 against #97. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Mistral Small 4 cheaper than Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper on output tokens: $0.15/1M against $0.60/1M. Input tokens are $0.15/1M for Mistral Small 4 and $0.10/1M for Qwen3.5-9B. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $0.60 for Mistral Small 4 versus $0.27 for Qwen3.5-9B. Qwen3.5-9B costs 54.2% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.

Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3.5-9B?

Both publish a 262K-token context window.

Which is better for coding, Mistral Small 4 or Qwen3.5-9B?

AA Terminal-Bench 2.1: Mistral Small 4 21.0%, Qwen3.5-9B 29.2% — Qwen3.5-9B leads.

Are Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.5-9B open-weight models?

Mistral Small 4: Open weights. Qwen3.5-9B: Open weights. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Mistral Small 4 and Qwen3.5-9B?

ModelCap currently lists 2 API providers for Mistral Small 4 and 6 for Qwen3.5-9B, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Mistral Small 4 vs Qwen3.5-9B comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 9 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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