Model comparison

Gemma 3 27B vs Mistral Small

Mistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 2.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 35 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 27B Google

30.5

Rank #277 Confirmed

Mistral Small Mistral AI

33.1

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 35 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 4 categories and Mistral Small in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where Mistral Small leads 40.4 to 27.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is MATH Level 5: 74% for Gemma 3 27B and 46.8% for Mistral Small.
  • Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.15 / $0.60 for Mistral Small.
  • Mistral Small accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 27B and Mistral Small specifications
Gemma 3 27BMistral Small
ProviderGoogleMistral AI
Noometry Index30.533.1
Released2025-03-112024-02-26
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K256K
Max output8K256K
Input $ / M tokens$0.08$0.15
Output $ / M tokens$0.16$0.60
Results tracked4339

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Category by category

Coding Mistral Small leads

Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329), Mistral Small: 33.5 (#242)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
SciCode21.2%26.5%
LiveBench Coding39.9%36.2%
LMArena Coding13221363
Aider Polyglot4.9%—
BigCodeBench Instruct—36.1%
BigCodeBench Complete—46.6%
ALE-Bench—497.62

Agentic & Tool Use Mistral Small leads

Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105), Mistral Small: 27.9 (#87)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard29.5%37.1%

Reasoning Mistral Small leads

Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297), Mistral Small: 19.3 (#238)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
Kagi LLM Benchmark40.4%37.8%
CritPt0%0%
LiveBench Reasoning43.8%44.8%
LMArena Hard Prompts13401336
DTBench52.5%70.9%
LiveBench Data Analysis51.5%53.7%
LMCA12.3%20.6%
LiveBench50%44%
Chess Puzzles0%—
Epoch Capabilities Index130.04—

Math Gemma 3 27B leads

Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261), Mistral Small: 15.4 (#287)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202522.5%5.8%
LiveBench Math55.4%39.9%
LMArena Math13121341
MATH Level 574%46.8%

Knowledge Mistral Small leads

Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256), Mistral Small: 30.9 (#214)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
GPQA Diamond47.7%47.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate7.4%5.1%
LMArena Expert13031293
Confabulations40.3%—
MMLU—68.7%

Multimodal Too close to call

Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94), Mistral Small: 32.9 (#91)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
LMArena Vision11651142
GeoBench52%—

Multilingual Gemma 3 27B leads

Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150), Mistral Small: 45.7 (#164)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
LMArena Non-English13341315
LMArena Chinese13471342
LMArena French13681337
LMArena German13621341
LMArena Japanese12871275
LMArena Korean13081260
LMArena Russian13491324
LMArena Spanish13481346

Instruction Following Gemma 3 27B leads

Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155), Mistral Small: 66.6 (#204)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
LiveBench Instruction Following74.9%63.7%
LMArena Instruction Following13211310

Long Context Mistral Small leads

Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288), Mistral Small: 40.4 (#151)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
LMArena Longer Query13331327
Fiction.LiveBench33.3%—

Writing & Preference Too close to call

Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161), Mistral Small: 52.6 (#165)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 3 27BMistral Small
LMArena Text13581338
LMArena Creative Writing13461304
LMArena Multi-Turn13441344
LiveBench Language34.6%30.5%
Short-Story Creative Writing79.9%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1266—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 27B better than Mistral Small?

Mistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.1 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 2.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Mistral Small?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Mistral Small lists at $0.15 and $0.60.

Is Gemma 3 27B or Mistral Small better for coding?

Mistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.5 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small does, with 256K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Mistral Small share?

35 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small has 39.

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