Model comparison

Gemma 3 12B vs Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 32.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 12B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Large 3's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 14 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 12B

Google

32.1

Rank #262 Confirmed

Mistral Large 3

Mistral AI

39.1

Rank #176 Confirmed

Summary

They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and Mistral Large 3 in 7 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Large 3 leads 38.7 to 22.3.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 4.4% for Gemma 3 12B and 14.5% for Mistral Large 3.
Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $0.75 for Mistral Large 3.
Mistral Large 3 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 12B and Mistral Large 3 specifications
	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
Provider	Google	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	32.1	39.1
Released	2025-03-12	2025-12-02
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	8K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.05	$0.25
Output $ / M tokens	$0.15	$0.75
Results tracked	24	24

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 31.7 (#280), Mistral Large 3: 34.4 (#237)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Coding	1281	1448
LMArena WebDev	—	1230
SciCode	17.4%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: 25.5 (#108), Mistral Large 3: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	30.4%	—

Reasoning Too close to call

Gemma 3 12B: 15.7 (#313), Mistral Large 3: 15.2 (#319)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Hard Prompts	1309	1429
Kagi LLM Benchmark	—	50.9%
NYT Connections (extended)	—	7.5%
CritPt	0%	—
Chess Puzzles	0%	—
Thematic Generalization	—	23%
DTBench	48.8%	—
LMCA	4.5%	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	123.5	—

Math Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 22.3 (#279), Mistral Large 3: 38.7 (#129)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Math	1307	1414
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	16.7%	—

Knowledge Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#257), Mistral Large 3: 36.0 (#177)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
Vectara Hallucination Rate	4.4%	14.5%
LMArena Expert	1248	1421
GPQA Diamond	39.5%	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemma 3 12B: —, Mistral Large 3: 38.2 (#66)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Vision	—	1221
MindCube	46.7%	—

Multilingual Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 45.7 (#165), Mistral Large 3: 52.5 (#84)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Non-English	1318	1413
LMArena German	1370	1437
LMArena Russian	1335	1411
LMArena Chinese	—	1447
LMArena French	—	1455
LMArena Japanese	—	1394
LMArena Korean	—	1384
LMArena Spanish	—	1440

Instruction Following Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 68.6 (#186), Mistral Large 3: 74.0 (#108)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Instruction Following	1299	1403

Long Context Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#162), Mistral Large 3: 43.1 (#105)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Longer Query	1317	1413

Writing & Preference Mistral Large 3 leads

Gemma 3 12B: 47.5 (#209), Mistral Large 3: 60.0 (#101)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 12B	Mistral Large 3
LMArena Text	1334	1428
LMArena Creative Writing	1331	1386
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1126	1412
LMArena Multi-Turn	1334	1429

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 12B better than Mistral Large 3?

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Mistral Large 3?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Mistral Large 3 lists at $0.25 and $0.75.

Is Gemma 3 12B or Mistral Large 3 better for coding?

Mistral Large 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.4 versus 31.7 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Large 3 does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Mistral Large 3 share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Large 3 has 24.