Model comparison
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct vs Mistral Small
Mistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.4 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 13 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct scores higher in 4 categories and Mistral Small in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Mistral Small leads 52.5 to 35.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 27.1% for Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and 37.1% for Mistral Small.
Side by side
| Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 32.4 | 33.4 |
| Released | — | 2024-02-26 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 262K |
| Max output | — | 256K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.60 |
| Results tracked | 13 | 39 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 34.5 (#233), Mistral Small: 34.0 (#247)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1186 | 1362 |
| SciCode | — | 26.5% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 36.1% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 36.2% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 46.6% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 497.62 |
Agentic & Tool Use Mistral Small leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 24.1 (#120), Mistral Small: 28.1 (#93)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 27.1% | 37.1% |
Reasoning Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 22.1 (#207), Mistral Small: 19.8 (#250)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1145 | 1335 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 37.8% |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 44.8% |
| DTBench | — | 70.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 53.7% |
| LMCA | — | 20.6% |
| LiveBench | — | 44% |
Math Granite 3.1 8b Instruct leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 33.0 (#209), Mistral Small: 16.4 (#293)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1152 | 1341 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 5.8% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 39.9% |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 46.8% |
Knowledge Too close to call
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 31.1 (#220), Mistral Small: 31.0 (#222)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1142 | 1291 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.5% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 5.1% |
| MMLU | — | 68.7% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: —, Mistral Small: 33.5 (#96)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1142 |
Multilingual Mistral Small leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 30.9 (#260), Mistral Small: 45.5 (#169)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1099 | 1315 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1145 | 1340 |
| LMArena Russian | 1092 | 1324 |
| LMArena French | — | 1337 |
| LMArena German | — | 1340 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1275 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1259 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1346 |
Instruction Following Mistral Small leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 58.6 (#259), Mistral Small: 66.4 (#209)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1131 | 1310 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 63.7% |
Long Context Mistral Small leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.2 (#241), Mistral Small: 40.4 (#156)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1162 | 1327 |
Writing & Preference Mistral Small leads
Granite 3.1 8b Instruct: 35.5 (#266), Mistral Small: 52.5 (#171)
| Benchmark | Granite 3.1 8b Instruct | Mistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1150 | 1338 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1129 | 1305 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1108 | 1344 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 30.5% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct better than Mistral Small?
Mistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.4 to 32.4 on the Noometry Index.
Is Granite 3.1 8b Instruct or Mistral Small better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (34.5 vs 34.0); test both on your own repository before choosing.
How many benchmarks do Granite 3.1 8b Instruct and Mistral Small share?
13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 3.1 8b Instruct has 13 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small has 39.