Model comparison
Kimi K3 vs Magistral Small
Kimi K3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 8.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. Kimi K3 scores higher in 4 categories and Magistral Small in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Kimi K3 leads 63.0 to 6.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-1: 94.5% for Kimi K3 and 5% for Magistral Small.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $3 / $15 for Kimi K3.
- Kimi K3 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Kimi K3 | Magistral Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Moonshot AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 59.5 | 30.2 |
| Released | 2026-07-16 | 2025-06-10 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 128K |
| Max output | 1.05M | 40K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $3 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $15 | $1.50 |
| Results tracked | 53 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Kimi K3 leads
Kimi K3: 61.0 (#10), Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 59.5% | 35.2% |
| DeepSWE | 68.5% | — |
| FrontierCode | 44.2% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1654 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 25.9% | — |
| WeirdML | 82.6% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1508 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,524 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Kimi K3: 41.8 (#20), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 50.6% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 37.1% | — |
| PostTrainBench | 32% | — |
| GBAEval | 48.3% | — |
| GDP.pdf | 19% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,165 | — |
Reasoning Kimi K3 leads
Kimi K3: 63.0 (#17), Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | 0% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 94.5% | 5% |
| CritPt | 23.4% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 39% | 3% |
| DTBench | 91.2% | 61.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 157.45 | 133.19 |
| SimpleBench | 60.7% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 6.3% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 93.6% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1496 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 26% | — |
| LMCA | 52.7% | — |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 95% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61.1 | — |
Math Kimi K3 leads
Kimi K3: 74.2 (#16), Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 97.2% | 30% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 72.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 39% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 87.8% | — |
| ProofBench | 87% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1491 | — |
Knowledge Kimi K3 leads
Kimi K3: 63.2 (#21), Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.1% | 56.1% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 50.6% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1521 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Kimi K3: 37.8 (#70), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 29.5% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 34.2% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Kimi K3: 56.3 (#21), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1466 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1529 | — |
| LMArena French | 1491 | — |
| LMArena German | 1488 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1487 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1458 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1482 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1472 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Kimi K3: 77.7 (#14), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1483 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Kimi K3: 45.8 (#29), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1494 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Kimi K3: 76.6 (#4), Magistral Small: —
| Benchmark | Kimi K3 | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1476 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1454 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 2082 | — |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1339 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1488 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Kimi K3 better than Magistral Small?
Kimi K3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 59.5 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 8.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Kimi K3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Kimi K3 or Magistral Small?
Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Kimi K3 lists at $3 and $15.
Is Kimi K3 or Magistral Small better for coding?
Kimi K3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 61.0 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Kimi K3 does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Kimi K3 and Magistral Small share?
9 benchmarks have published results for both models. Kimi K3 has 53 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.