Model comparison

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Small

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.6 to 33.1 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small costs 11× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 18 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

39.6

Rank #151 Confirmed

Mistral Small

Mistral AI

33.1

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small in 1 category; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 36.4 to 15.4.
Mistral Small is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.60 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

Side by side

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small specifications
	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
Provider	Mistral AI	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	39.6	33.1
Released	—	2024-02-26
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	262K	256K
Max output	210K	256K
Input $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.15
Output $ / M tokens	$7.50	$0.60
Results tracked	22	39

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 35.7 (#208), Mistral Small: 33.5 (#242)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Coding	1461	1363
LMArena WebDev	1263	—
SciCode	—	26.5%
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	36.1%
LiveBench Coding	—	36.2%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	46.6%
ALE-Bench	—	497.62

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Mistral Medium 3.5: —, Mistral Small: 27.9 (#87)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	—	37.1%

Reasoning Mistral Small leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 16.6 (#290), Mistral Small: 19.3 (#238)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
Kagi LLM Benchmark	41.4%	37.8%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1436	1336
NYT Connections (extended)	12.9%	—
CritPt	—	0%
LiveBench Reasoning	—	44.8%
DTBench	—	70.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis	—	53.7%
LMCA	—	20.6%
Epoch Capabilities Index	141.42	—
LiveBench	—	44%

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.4 (#113), Mistral Small: 15.4 (#287)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Math	1432	1341
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	5.8%
LiveBench Math	—	39.9%
MATH Level 5	—	46.8%

Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.3 (#123), Mistral Small: 30.9 (#214)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Expert	1431	1293
GPQA Diamond	—	47.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	5.1%
MMLU	—	68.7%

Multimodal Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 37.6 (#64), Mistral Small: 32.9 (#91)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Vision	1222	1142

Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 52.1 (#93), Mistral Small: 45.7 (#164)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Non-English	1405	1315
LMArena Chinese	1443	1342
LMArena French	1448	1337
LMArena German	1453	1341
LMArena Korean	1387	1260
LMArena Russian	1396	1324
LMArena Spanish	1406	1346
LMArena Japanese	—	1275

Instruction Following Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.7 (#87), Mistral Small: 66.6 (#204)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Instruction Following	1414	1310
LiveBench Instruction Following	—	63.7%

Long Context Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#101), Mistral Small: 40.4 (#151)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Longer Query	1414	1327

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.6 (#113), Mistral Small: 52.6 (#165)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small
LMArena Text	1421	1338
LMArena Creative Writing	1372	1304
LMArena Multi-Turn	1423	1344
EQ-Bench 4	993	—
LiveBench Language	—	30.5%

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Mistral Small?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Mistral Small?

Mistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Mistral Small better for coding?

Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.7 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small has 39.