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© 2026 CompareLLM. Public benchmark data aggregated from Arena Elo, LiveBench, SWE-bench & OpenRouter.

Every score has a dated snapshot.

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  2. Comparisons
  3. Codestral 25.01 vs Qwen3 235B

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026

Codestral 25.01 vs Qwen3 235B benchmark

In this head-to-head showdown, Qwen3 235B delivers higher overall intelligence and human-preferred responses (Elo 1,440 vs 1,320), while Qwen3 235B leads in SWE-bench software engineering benchmarks (59.4%), while Codestral 25.01 is more budget-friendly at $0.9/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Choose Qwen3 235B if your priority is peak reasoning, complex code generation, and top preference Elo. Choose Codestral 25.01 if you are optimizing for low latency, high throughput, and cost-efficient API deployment.
Share Analysis:
WhatsAppTelegramXLinkedInReddit
Mistral
Codestral 25.01

Mistral code-specialist model.

CodestralElo 1,320$0.9/1M out
Alibaba
Qwen3 235B

Open-weight Qwen3 mixture-of-experts.

235B MoEElo 1,440$1.8199999999999998/1M out

Mistral Series Family & Variants (2)

Speed, cost, and intelligence tradeoffs across the Mistral lineup

vs Base Model
Mistral Large 3
Mistral
Base Model
Elo1456
Speed112 t/s
In /1M$2
Out /1M$6
View specs →vs this
Codestral 25.01
Mistral
Codestral
Elo1320
Speed148 t/s
In /1M$0.3
Out /1M$0.9
-136 Elo-85% price1.3x speed
Selected
Top Rival Showdowns for Codestral 25.01
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs Grok 4.6vs DeepSeek V4 Pro
Preference Leader

Qwen3 235B

Δ 120 Arena Elo pts

Throughput Leader

Codestral 25.01

148 tok/s

Value per Dollar Leader

Codestral 25.01

$0.9 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect
Percentile 0–100
Dimensional AdvantageEven 3–3
Head-to-Head Comparison

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

Codestral 25.01 (6)vsQwen3 235B (4)
Codestral 25.01: 6W (60%)Overall: Codestral 25.01Qwen3 235B: 4W (40%)
← Codestral 25.01Qwen3 235B →
Qwen3 235B (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo
1,320vs1,440
Coding Elo
1,402vs—
SWE-bench
51.8%vs59.4%
LiveBench
54%vs63.5%
GPQA Diamond
58.4%vs76.8%
Codestral 25.01: 1WQwen3 235B: 4W
Codestral 25.01 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed
148 tok/svs74 tok/s
Time to first token
150 msvs320 ms
Codestral 25.01: 2WQwen3 235B: 0W
Codestral 25.01 (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price
$0.9/1Mvs$1.82/1M
Input price
$0.3/1Mvs$0.455/1M
Context window
256kvs131k
Codestral 25.01: 3WQwen3 235B: 0W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Preference EloQwen3 235B (+120)
Codestral 25.011,320
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B1,440
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Coding Elo
Codestral 25.011,402
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B—
LiveBenchQwen3 235B (+9.5%)
Codestral 25.0154%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B63.5%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
SWE-benchQwen3 235B (+7.6%)
Codestral 25.0151.8%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B59.4%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
GPQA DiamondQwen3 235B (+18.4%)
Codestral 25.0158.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B76.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Time to first tokenCodestral 25.01 (+170 ms)
Codestral 25.01150 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B320 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Output speedCodestral 25.01 (+74 tok/s)
Codestral 25.01148 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B74 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Input priceCodestral 25.01 (+$0.155/1M)
Codestral 25.01$0.3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B$0.455/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Output priceCodestral 25.01 (+$0.92/1M)
Codestral 25.01$0.9/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B$1.82/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Context windowCodestral 25.01 (+125k)
Codestral 25.01256k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B131k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
BenchmarkCodestral 25.01Qwen3 235BAdvantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,320
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
1,440
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B (+120)
Coding Elo
1,402
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
——
LiveBench
54%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
63.5%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B (+9.5%)
SWE-bench
51.8%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
59.4%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen3 235B (+7.6%)
GPQA Diamond
58.4%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
76.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen3 235B (+18.4%)
Time to first token
150 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
320 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Codestral 25.01 (+170 ms)
Output speed
148 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
74 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Codestral 25.01 (+74 tok/s)
Input price
$0.3/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$0.455/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Codestral 25.01 (+$0.155/1M)
Output price
$0.9/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
$1.82/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Codestral 25.01 (+$0.92/1M)
Context window
256k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
131k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Codestral 25.01 (+125k)
Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 44% with Codestral 25.01
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
Codestral 25.01$24.00 / mo
In: $10.5Out: $13.5
Qwen3 235B$43.22 / mo
In: $15.92Out: $27.3
Estimated Cost Delta

Codestral 25.01 is estimated to save $19.22/month ($231/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    Qwen3 235B:Pick Qwen3 235B when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
  • 2
    Codestral 25.01:Pick Codestral 25.01 when you are optimizing output cost.
  • 3
    Codestral 25.01:Pick Codestral 25.01 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen3 235B

Higher SWE-bench (59.4%).

High-volume chatCodestral 25.01

Lower output list price ($0.9/1M).

Voice / low-latency UICodestral 25.01

Lower TTFT (150 ms).

Long-document RAGCodestral 25.01

Larger window (256k).

Screenshots / visionQwen3 235B

Qwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsQwen3 235BHigher SWE-bench (59.4%).
High-volume chatCodestral 25.01Lower output list price ($0.9/1M).
Voice / low-latency UICodestral 25.01Lower TTFT (150 ms).
Long-document RAGCodestral 25.01Larger window (256k).
Screenshots / visionQwen3 235BQwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news
launchSep 20, 2025

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Sep 2025 open-weight mixture-of-experts. Self-host path. Don’t confuse it with Qwen 3 Max.

launchJan 14, 2025

Codestral 25.01: Mistral’s code-specialist row

Jan 2025 code model. Still a valid cheap-coding compare. Not a chatbot.

Community Sentiment

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CompareLLM Matrix

Verified head-to-head card

LIVE
VS
Mistral

Codestral 25.01

Elo 1,320
LiveBench54%
SWE-bench51.8%
Speed148 tok/s
Output cost$0.9/1M
Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Elo 1,440
LiveBench63.5%
SWE-bench59.4%
Speed74 tok/s
Output cost$1.82/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Codestral 25.01 or Qwen3 235B?
Qwen3 235B has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,440). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Codestral 25.01 or Qwen3 235B?
Qwen3 235B leads SWE-bench at 59.4% vs 51.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Codestral 25.01 output tokens are $0.9/1M versus $1.82/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Codestral 25.01 or Qwen3 235B?
Codestral 25.01 has the lower time-to-first-token (150 ms vs 320 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?
Codestral 25.01 accepts 256k tokens versus 131k.
Can I self-host either model?
Qwen3 235B is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?
No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?
Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Codestral 25.01 and Qwen3 235B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Related news

  • launch · Sep 20, 2025

    Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

  • launch · Jan 14, 2025

    Codestral 25.01: Mistral’s code-specialist row

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Codestral 25.01 matchups →|All Qwen3 235B matchups →
Codestral 25.01 vs Mistral Large 3 (next mistral)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (previous qwen)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen QwQ 32B (next qwen)Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3 235BQwen 3 Max vs Qwen3 235BQwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3 235B