Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Magistral Small

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1 DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Magistral Small Mistral AI

30.2

Rank #296 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 4 categories and Magistral Small in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 43.8 to 26.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 69.4% for DeepSeek-R1 and 6.3% for Magistral Small.
  • Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2.15 for DeepSeek-R1.
  • DeepSeek-R1 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 128K.
  • Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Magistral Small specifications
DeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
ProviderDeepSeekMistral AI
Noometry Index42.330.2
Released2025-01-202025-06-10
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window164K128K
Max output64K40K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.50
Output $ / M tokens$2.15$1.50
Results tracked5210

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
SciCode35.7%35.2%
Aider Polyglot71.4%—
WeirdML41.6%—
LiveBench Coding66.7%—
LMArena Coding1427—
ALE-Bench804.12—
AlgoTune1.7—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Magistral Small: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
DeepResearch Bench35.1%—
BALROG34.9%—
METR Time Horizons53.8%—

Reasoning DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
ARC-AGI-21.3%0%
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%6.3%
ARC-AGI-121.2%5%
CritPt1.1%0.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index141.29133.19
SimpleBench40.8%—
Chess Puzzles—3%
LiveBench Reasoning83.2%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1416—
DTBench—61.3%
LiveBench Data Analysis69.8%—
ForecastBench60—
LiveBench71.6%—

Math DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202566.4%30%
Omni-MATH42.4%—
LiveBench Math80.7%—
LMArena Math1400—
MATH Level 596.6%—

Knowledge DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
GPQA Diamond76.3%56.1%
MMLU-Pro79.3%—
Confabulations12.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate11.3%—
GPQA (HELM)66.6%—
LMArena Expert1394—

Multilingual Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Magistral Small: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
LMArena Non-English1412—
LMArena Chinese1442—
LMArena French1417—
LMArena German1404—
LMArena Japanese1391—
LMArena Korean1360—
LMArena Russian1423—
LMArena Spanish1411—

Instruction Following Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Magistral Small: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
LiveBench Instruction Following80.5%—
IFEval78.4%—
LMArena Instruction Following1382—

Long Context Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Magistral Small: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
Fiction.LiveBench75%—
LMArena Longer Query1391—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Magistral Small: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkDeepSeek-R1Magistral Small
LMArena Text1428—
LMArena Creative Writing1405—
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1500—
WildBench82.8%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1405—
LiveBench Language48.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Magistral Small?

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Magistral Small?

Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-R1 lists at $0.50 and $2.15.

Is DeepSeek-R1 or Magistral Small better for coding?

DeepSeek-R1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 46.3 versus 38.4 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-R1 does, with 164K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Magistral Small share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.

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