Model comparison
Ministral 8B vs Mistral Small 3
Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 8B scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Mistral Small 3 leads 25.1 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 27.1% for Ministral 8B and 47.3% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.15 / $0.15 for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
Side by side
| Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 28.2 | 31.2 |
| Released | 2024-10-01 | 2025-01-30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 33K |
| Max output | 262K | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.15 | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 17 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Mistral Small 3 leads
Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1202 | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148), Mistral Small 3: —
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 11.1% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | 1233 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| DTBench | 45.7% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.07 |
Math Ministral 8B leads
Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1188 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.9% | — |
Knowledge Mistral Small 3 leads
Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 27.1% | 47.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1170 | 1202 |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |
Multilingual Mistral Small 3 leads
Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1165 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1193 | 1204 |
| LMArena Russian | 1195 | 1216 |
| LMArena French | — | 1203 |
| LMArena German | — | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |
Instruction Following Mistral Small 3 leads
Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1161 | 1214 |
Long Context Mistral Small 3 leads
Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1212 | 1246 |
Writing & Preference Ministral 8B leads
Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)
| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1191 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1175 | 1195 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1166 | 1217 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Ministral 8B better than Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B or Mistral Small 3?
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Ministral 8B lists at $0.15 and $0.15.
Is Ministral 8B or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?
Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Ministral 8B and Mistral Small 3 share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 8B has 17 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.