Noometry

Model comparison

Gemini 3 Flash Preview vs Mistral Small 3

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3 Flash Preview Google

52.3

Rank #40 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3 Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher in 8 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads 51.7 to 16.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 95.6% for Gemini 3 Flash Preview and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
  • Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Gemini 3 Flash Preview.
  • Gemini 3 Flash Preview accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 33K.
  • Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Gemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
ProviderGoogleMistral AI
Noometry Index52.331.2
Released2025-12-172025-01-30
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M33K
Max output66K16K
Input $ / M tokens$0.50$0.05
Output $ / M tokens$3$0.08
Results tracked5924

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 50.9 (#42), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Coding14601246
SWE-bench Verified75.4%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)75.8%—
LMArena WebDev1439—
SWE-bench Multilingual72.7%—
GSO9.8%—
WeirdML61.6%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—45.3%
BigCodeBench Complete—50.4%
ALE-Bench1,367—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 38.7 (#29), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
Terminal-Bench64.3%—
τ²-bench Airline82.5%—
τ²-bench Banking27.3%—
τ²-bench Retail76.8%—
τ²-bench Telecom91.2%—
DeepResearch Bench49.8%—
BALROG48.1%—
GDP.pdf10%—
LMArena Search1198—
Vending-Bench 23,635—

Reasoning Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 49.2 (#37), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
Chess Puzzles40%0%
LMArena Hard Prompts14651233
Epoch Capabilities Index151.8127.07
ARC-AGI-233.6%—
SimpleBench61.1%—
NYT Connections (extended)83.1%—
ARC-AGI-184.7%—
Mystery Game Puzzles26%—
DTBench89.1%—
LMCA43.1%—
ForecastBench58.5—

Math Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 51.7 (#55), Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202595.6%6.7%
LMArena Math14731240
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)51.2%—
FrontierMath Tier 417.1%—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions67.6%—
ProofBench15%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)35.6%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 58.8 (#33), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
GPQA Diamond89.4%47.3%
LMArena Expert14621202
SimpleQA Verified66.8%—
Confabulations—25.2%
Vectara Hallucination Rate13.5%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 45.5 (#16), Mistral Small 3: —

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Vision1285—
GeoBench88%—
VPCT72.6%—
Blueprint-Bench 20%—
LMArena Document1413—

Multilingual Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 55.7 (#27), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English14581198
LMArena Chinese15111204
LMArena French14771203
LMArena German14971211
LMArena Japanese14891111
LMArena Korean14431188
LMArena Russian14801216
LMArena Spanish1469—

Instruction Following Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 75.7 (#56), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following14371214

Long Context Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 44.4 (#67), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query14521246

Writing & Preference Gemini 3 Flash Preview leads

Gemini 3 Flash Preview: 65.5 (#45), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

BenchmarkGemini 3 Flash PreviewMistral Small 3
LMArena Text14661234
LMArena Creative Writing14571195
LMArena Multi-Turn14711217
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—707

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3 Flash Preview better than Mistral Small 3?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 52.3 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 20× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3 Flash Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3 Flash Preview 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 3 Flash Preview lists at $0.50 and $3.

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

Gemini 3 Flash Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.9 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3 Flash Preview does, with 1.05M tokens against 33K.

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

20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3 Flash Preview has 59 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.

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