Model comparison
Granite 4.0 Micro vs Mistral Small 3.1
Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small 3.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Mistral Small 3.1 leads 22.6 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is MMLU-Pro: 39.5% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 61% for Mistral Small 3.1.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.35 / $0.56 for Mistral Small 3.1.
- Granite 4.0 Micro accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 31.7 |
| Released | 2025-10-02 | 2025-03-17 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 128K |
| Max output | 118K | 102K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.017 | $0.35 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.11 | $0.56 |
| Results tracked | 8 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1309 |
Reasoning Too close to call
Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265), Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1278 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.48 |
Math Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307), Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 3.9% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | 24.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1262 |
Knowledge Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 41.9% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | 61% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | 39.2% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1257 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1136 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1255 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1253 |
| LMArena French | — | 1273 |
| LMArena German | — | 1266 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1208 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1206 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1263 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1283 |
Instruction Following Granite 4.0 Micro leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | 75% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1264 |
Long Context Not comparable
Granite 4.0 Micro: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1299 |
Writing & Preference Granite 4.0 Micro leads
Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259)
| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| WildBench | 67% | 78.8% |
| LMArena Text | — | 1277 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1253 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 761 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1270 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Mistral Small 3.1?
Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small 3.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Mistral Small 3.1?
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Mistral Small 3.1 lists at $0.35 and $0.56.
Which has the bigger context window?
Granite 4.0 Micro does, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Mistral Small 3.1 share?
8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.