Model comparison
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Ministral 8B
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
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Mistral AISummary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 50.1 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 83.3% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | |
| Noometry Index | 41.5 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 39 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1453 | 1202 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1440 | — |
| SciCode | 41.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 39% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 765.27 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 29.3% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| GDP.pdf | 10% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1441 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 83.5% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 10.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 53.5% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 22% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 19% | — |
| LMCA | 37.6% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 145.13 | — |
Math Too close to call
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1433 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 26% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 0% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 71.1% | — |
| ProofBench | 13% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 83.3% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1435 | 1170 |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Ministral 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1268 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1427 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1469 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1443 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1451 | — |
| LMArena German | 1454 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1427 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1407 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1442 | — |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1420 | 1161 |
Long Context Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1435 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1435 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1420 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1445 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1559 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Ministral 8B?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Ministral 8B better for coding?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Ministral 8B share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.