# Qwen2.5 vs DeepSeek-V3 vs Mistral Small 3.1 A side-by-side look at one named release from each of three open-weight families: Qwen2.5 (with Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct as the example release), DeepSeek-V3 (Base and Chat) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct (2503). Every row applies only to the release it names — these are not the families' current flagships — and the rows are based on the published model cards and licence pages associated with them. Three open-weight families, compared at one named release each: Qwen2.5 under Apache-2.0 (all open models except the 3B and 72B variants), DeepSeek-V3 with MIT for its repository code and the DeepSeek Model License for its Base and Chat weights, and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct under Apache-2.0. Licence terms are set per release, not per family, so each row states the model it was read from. Sourced rows carry a per-product verification state. Canonical URL: https://globalaiproductindex.com/compare/qwen-vs-deepseek-vs-mistral/ | Dimension | [Qwen](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/qwen/) | [DeepSeek](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/deepseek/) | [Mistral](https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/mistral/) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Company | Alibaba | DeepSeek | Mistral AI | | Category | Open Models | Open Models | Open Models | | Business model | Open (open weights/source) | Open (open weights/source) | Open (open weights/source) | | License | Apache-2.0 (Qwen2.5 open models except the 3B and 72B variants); later Qwen lines not read | MIT (DeepSeek-V3 repository code); DeepSeek Model License (DeepSeek-V3 Base and Chat weights) | Apache-2.0 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct; other releases differ (Mistral Medium 3.5: Modified MIT; Mistral Large 4: 'Open'; Voxtral TTS: CC BY-NC 4.0) | | Pricing | Open-weight Qwen models are free to download; hosted access through Alibaba Cloud is usage-priced. | The chat assistant is free; the developer API is usage-priced, and open-weight models can be self-hosted without license fees. | Open-weight models are free to download; hosted API access and commercial models are usage-priced. | | Pricing page | Not recorded | https://api-docs.deepseek.com/zh-cn/quick_start/pricing/ | https://mistral.ai/pricing/ | | Documentation | Not recorded | Not recorded | https://docs.mistral.ai | | Launched | 2023-08 | 2023-11 | 2023-09 | | Availability | global | global | global | | Model compared (the release this page reads) | Qwen2.5 — Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct is the example release; the line also ships 0.5B–72B dense models plus Qwen2.5-Coder and Qwen2.5-Math | DeepSeek-V3 — read in its Base and Chat variants | Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct — Hugging Face release name Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503 | | Licence and commercial use (model compared) | Apache-2.0 for the Qwen2.5 open models except the 3B and 72B variants; commercial use allowed | DeepSeek-V3 only: MIT for the repository code, DeepSeek Model License for the Base and Chat weights; commercial use is supported subject to that licence's use-based restrictions | Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct only: Apache-2.0 open weights for commercial and non-commercial use. Other Mistral releases differ (Mistral Medium 3.5: Modified MIT; Mistral Large 4: 'Open'; Voxtral TTS: CC BY-NC 4.0) | | Scale and architecture (model compared) | Dense Qwen2.5 family from 0.5B to 72B parameters | 671B total parameters with 37B activated per token (mixture-of-experts) | 24B dense model (Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct) | | Context window (model compared) | 131,072 tokens for Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct, with 8,192-token generation | 128K tokens (DeepSeek-V3) | 128k tokens (Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct) | | Modality (model compared) | Text (Qwen2.5 language models) | Text (DeepSeek-V3) | Text and image (Mistral Small 3.1 adds vision understanding) | | Family breadth (context only — not the release compared) | General, Coder and Math lines from 0.5B to 72B; later Qwen lines are outside this page's licence reading | The DeepSeek-V3 release ships Base and Chat variants; no other DeepSeek release is covered here | Generalist, code, OCR, audio and moderation lines; licences differ by release, so the Apache-2.0 row above applies to Mistral Small 3.1 only | | Website | https://github.com/QwenLM | https://www.deepseek.com | https://mistral.ai | | Record updated | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-13 | 2026-10-13 | ## When to choose each - **Qwen** — When you want the Qwen2.5 line: dense models from 0.5B to 72B under Apache-2.0 (except the 3B and 72B variants), with long context and broad language coverage. - **DeepSeek** — When you want the DeepSeek-V3 release: a large mixture-of-experts model with published Base and Chat weights whose licence explicitly supports commercial use. - **Mistral** — When you want the Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct release: Apache-2.0 open weights at a mid size, with vision input. Other Mistral releases use different terms. ## FAQ **Can I download and run these models on my own hardware?** Yes — all three releases compared here publish weights you can download and run yourself. Hardware needs vary widely with model size, from a 24B dense model to a 671B mixture-of-experts model. **Do these licences allow commercial use?** It depends on the release, and code and weights can differ. Qwen2.5 (except the 3B and 72B variants) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct are Apache-2.0, which permits commercial use. DeepSeek-V3 is split: MIT for the repository code, and the DeepSeek Model License for the Base and Chat weights, which supports commercial use subject to its use-based restrictions. Other releases from these families were not read for this page and carry their own terms. **Are the licences shown here final?** No. Licences are set per model release, not per family, and can change between versions and variants. Each row here names the release it was read from; other models from the same families may use different terms. ## Comparison claim sources - **Model compared (the release this page reads)** - [Qwen](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) — verified 2026-10-13 - **Licence and commercial use (model compared)** - [Qwen](https://qwenlm.github.io/blog/qwen2.5/) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) — verified 2026-10-13 - **Scale and architecture (model compared)** - [Qwen](https://qwenlm.github.io/blog/qwen2.5/) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) — verified 2026-10-13 - **Context window (model compared)** - [Qwen](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) — verified 2026-10-13 - **Modality (model compared)** - [Qwen](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) — verified 2026-10-13 - **Family breadth (context only — not the release compared)** - [Qwen](https://qwenlm.github.io/blog/qwen2.5/) — verified 2026-10-13 - [DeepSeek](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) — verified 2026-10-13 - [Mistral](https://docs.mistral.ai/models) — verified 2026-10-13 ## Sources and record dates Record dates describe index updates, not independent product tests. Check linked documentation for current features and pricing. ### Qwen Record updated: 2026-10-13 - [Project repository](https://github.com/QwenLM) - [Qwen (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwen) - [Qwen2.5 release notes](https://qwenlm.github.io/blog/qwen2.5/) - [Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct model card (Hugging Face)](https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct) ### DeepSeek Record updated: 2026-10-13 - [Official website](https://www.deepseek.com) - [DeepSeek (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek) - [Official pricing](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/zh-cn/quick_start/pricing/) - [DeepSeek-V3 model card (Hugging Face)](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3) - [DeepSeek-V3 code licence (LICENSE-CODE, MIT)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3/main/LICENSE-CODE) - [DeepSeek-V3 model licence (LICENSE-MODEL, DeepSeek License Agreement v1.0)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3/main/LICENSE-MODEL) - [Pricing](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/zh-cn/quick_start/pricing/) ### Mistral Record updated: 2026-10-13 - [Official website](https://mistral.ai) - [Mistral AI (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral_AI) - [Documentation - Mistral AI](https://docs.mistral.ai/) - [Official pricing](https://mistral.ai/pricing/) - [Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct model card (Hugging Face)](https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Small-3.1-24B-Instruct-2503) - [Models overview (licences per release)](https://docs.mistral.ai/models) - [Pricing](https://mistral.ai/pricing/) - [Documentation](https://docs.mistral.ai) --- Data from the [Global AI Product Index](https://globalaiproductindex.com/), licensed CC BY 4.0.