Model comparison

Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Mistral Small 3

Gemini 2.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 2.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 2.5 Flash Google

39.0

Rank #162 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

30.9

Rank #268 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 2.5 Flash scores higher in 6 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 2.5 Flash leads 38.1 to 15.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 73.1% for Gemini 2.5 Flash and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Gemini 2.5 Flash.
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 2.5 Flash and Mistral Small 3 specifications
Gemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
ProviderGoogleMistral AI
Noometry Index39.030.9
Released2025-04-172025-01-30
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M33K
Max output66K16K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$2.50$0.08
Results tracked5424

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 35.5 (#210), Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Coding14241246
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)28.7%—
Aider Polyglot55.1%—
WeirdML41.9%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—50.4%
ALE-Bench661.88—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 30.6 (#67), Mistral Small 3: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
Terminal-Bench17.1%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard56.2%—
TheAgentCompany41.1%—
BALROG33.5%—
Vending-Bench 2548.84—

Reasoning Too close to call

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 18.2 (#271), Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Hard Prompts14221233
Epoch Capabilities Index143.04127.06
ARC-AGI-22.5%—
SimpleBench41.2%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark56.8%—
ARC-AGI-133.3%—
CritPt1.1%—
Chess Puzzles—0%
EnigmaEval2.7%—
DTBench76.5%—
LMCA27.5%—
ForecastBench60.6—

Math Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 38.1 (#87), Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202573.1%6.7%
LMArena Math14151240
Omni-MATH38.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.8%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 36.1 (#162), Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
Confabulations16.8%25.2%
LMArena Expert14261202
GPQA Diamond—47.3%
Humanity's Last Exam12.1%—
MMLU-Pro63.9%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate7.8%—
GPQA (HELM)39%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 41.2 (#31), Mistral Small 3: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Vision1254—
GeoBench76%—
VPCT46.2%—
SpatialViz-Bench36.9%—

Multilingual Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 52.5 (#83), Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English14101198
LMArena Chinese14501204
LMArena French14331202
LMArena German14191211
LMArena Japanese14031111
LMArena Korean13851188
LMArena Russian14151216
LMArena Spanish1421—

Instruction Following Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 75.9 (#50), Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following14051214
IFEval89.8%—

Long Context Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 47.5 (#16), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query14191246
Fiction.LiveBench77.8%—

Writing & Preference Gemini 2.5 Flash leads

Gemini 2.5 Flash: 54.0 (#153), Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemini 2.5 FlashMistral Small 3
LMArena Text14171234
LMArena Creative Writing14001195
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1137707
LMArena Multi-Turn14081217
Short-Story Creative Writing76.5%—
WildBench81.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash better than Mistral Small 3?

Gemini 2.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 2.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash 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; Gemini 2.5 Flash lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Gemini 2.5 Flash or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (35.5 vs 36.0); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 2.5 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 2.5 Flash and Mistral Small 3 share?

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 2.5 Flash has 54 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.

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