Qwen Coder vs Devstral
Qwen Coder and Devstral side by side: model sizes, the VRAM you need, context window, abilities, licence and which one to pick.
Side by side
| Qwen Coder | Devstral | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Open-weight models | Open-weight models |
| Developer | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen team) | Mistral AI |
| Newest model | Qwen3-Coder-Next · Jan 2026 | Devstral 2 · Dec 2025 |
| Sizes | 80B | 24B · 123B |
| Smallest VRAM (4-bit) | ~58 GB (Qwen3-Coder-Next 80B) | ~17 GB (Devstral Small 2 24B) |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 384K tokens |
| Abilities | Tool calling | Tool callingImage input |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 | Modified MIT, Apache 2.0 |
| Run it | ollama run qwen3-coder-next | ollama run devstral-small-2:24b |
Which one should you pick?
- Devstral runs on smaller hardware: from ~17 GB of GPU memory, against ~58 GB.
- Devstral reads longer inputs: a 384K-token context window.
- Only Devstral has image input.
Pick Qwen Coder if…
- you want a dedicated coding model with tool calling
- you need fast autocomplete from a tiny model
- you have a 24 GB GPU and want a quick MoE coder
Pick Devstral if…
- you want an Apache 2.0 coding agent model for one GPU
- you need image input in a coding model
VRAM and download size
Ollama's default 4-bit builds with an 8K context. Read GB as system RAM on a CPU-only machine or a Mac.
Qwen Coder
| Model | Download | VRAM |
|---|---|---|
| Qwen3-Coder-Next | 52 GB | ~58 GB |
Devstral
| Model | Download | VRAM |
|---|---|---|
| Devstral Small 2 24B | 15 GB | ~17 GB |
| Devstral 2 123B | 75 GB | ~83 GB |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Coder better than Devstral?
It depends on the job and your hardware. Devstral runs on smaller hardware: from ~17 GB of GPU memory, against ~58 GB. Devstral reads longer inputs: a 384K-token context window. Only Devstral has image input. For quality, test both on your own prompts: benchmark rankings change with every release.
Which needs less VRAM, Qwen Coder or Devstral?
Qwen Coder starts at ~58 GB (52 GB download). Devstral starts at ~17 GB (15 GB download).
Can I use Qwen Coder and Devstral commercially?
Qwen Coder: Apache 2.0. Devstral: Modified MIT, Apache 2.0. Check the exact licence of the model you deploy; custom licences can limit very large companies or certain uses.
More comparisons
- Qwen vs Llama
- DeepSeek vs Qwen
- Gemma vs Llama
- gpt-oss vs Qwen
- Kimi vs DeepSeek
- GLM vs Qwen
- Mistral vs Llama
- Claude vs GPT
- Claude vs Gemini
- Gemini vs GPT
- Phi vs Gemma
- Nemotron vs Qwen
- Llama 3.1 vs Llama 4
- Gemma 3 vs Gemma 4
- Qwen3 vs Qwen3.5
- Qwen3.6 vs Qwen3.8
- Gemma 4 vs Qwen3.5
- DeepSeek-R1 vs Qwen3
- gpt-oss vs Qwen3.8
- Muse Glimmer vs Qwen3.8
- Qwen3-Coder vs Devstral Small 2