Model comparison
Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs Ministral 8B
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads 87.9 to 25.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 95.6% for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 61.9 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2026-09-28 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 128K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $10 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 67.3 (#6), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1513 | 1202 |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | — |
| CursorBench | 55.5% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1774 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | — |
| SciCode | 61% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 1,819 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.0 (#16), Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
Reasoning Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 54.0 (#28), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1495 | 1191 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 80.5% | — |
| CritPt | 31.4% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 65% | — |
| DTBench | — | 45.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 165.03 | — |
Math Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 87.9 (#6), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1510 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 88.8% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 80.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 100% | — |
| ProofBench | 100% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
| FrontierMath Erdős | 2.9% | — |
Knowledge Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#12), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.6% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1540 | 1170 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 51.5 (#6), Ministral 8B: —
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1289 | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 75% | — |
Multilingual Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 55.3 (#30), Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1452 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1522 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1451 | 1195 |
Instruction Following Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 78.3 (#11), Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1495 | 1161 |
Long Context Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 45.9 (#28), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1498 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads
Claude Sonnet 5.5: 66.0 (#40), Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1471 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1474 | 1166 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than Ministral 8B?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 61.9 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 27× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Claude Sonnet 5.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Claude Sonnet 5.5 lists at $2 and $10.
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 or Ministral 8B better for coding?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 67.3 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Ministral 8B share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude Sonnet 5.5 has 32 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.