Model comparison
Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Ministral 8B
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash'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 3.6 Flash scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 67.8 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 94.1% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | |
| Noometry Index | 54.1 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2026-07-21 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.75 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3.75 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 46 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 50.0 (#48), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1491 | 1202 |
| DeepSWE | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierCode | 34.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1538 | — |
| SciCode | 52.7% | — |
| WeirdML | 56.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 715.52 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.3 (#65), Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 46.9% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |
Reasoning Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.8 (#22), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1485 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 95.5% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 89% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 91.2% | — |
| CritPt | 10.6% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 43% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 30% | — |
| LMCA | 44.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.25 | — |
Math Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.3 (#40), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1505 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 58.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 22% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 70.8% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 36% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#8), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1488 | 1170 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.5 (#64), Ministral 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1298 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 31.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 23.3% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1456 | — |
Multilingual Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.5 (#19), Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1469 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1531 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1487 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1504 | — |
| LMArena German | 1478 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1476 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1431 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1475 | — |
Instruction Following Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.0 (#33), Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1466 | 1161 |
Long Context Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#50), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1474 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Gemini 3.6 Flash leads
Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.2 (#27), Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1479 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1465 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1481 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1604 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Ministral 8B?
Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.
Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Ministral 8B better for coding?
Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.0 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and Ministral 8B share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.