Model comparison

Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Small 3

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.5 to 31.2 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Granite 4.2 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 11 shared benchmarks.

Granite 4.2 8B IBM

40.5

Rank #148 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3

Mistral AI

31.2

Rank #278 Confirmed

Summary

They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 49.6 to 32.2.
Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.06 / $0.25 for Granite 4.2 8B.
Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

Side by side

Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Small 3 specifications
	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
Provider	IBM	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	40.5	31.2
Released	—	2025-01-30
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	33K
Max output	118K	16K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.06	$0.05
Output $ / M tokens	$0.25	$0.08
Results tracked	11	24

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Category by category

Coding Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.5 (#137), Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Coding	1380	1246
BigCodeBench Instruct	—	45.3%
BigCodeBench Complete	—	50.4%

Reasoning Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 26.6 (#131), Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Hard Prompts	1329	1233
Chess Puzzles	—	0%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	127.07

Math Not comparable

Granite 4.2 8B: —, Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	6.7%
LMArena Math	—	1240

Knowledge Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 38.4 (#145), Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Expert	1384	1202
GPQA Diamond	—	47.3%
Confabulations	—	25.2%

Multilingual Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#178), Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Non-English	1302	1198
LMArena Chinese	1366	1204
LMArena Russian	1285	1216
LMArena French	—	1203
LMArena German	—	1211
LMArena Japanese	—	1111
LMArena Korean	—	1188

Instruction Following Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#184), Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Instruction Following	1301	1214

Long Context Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 40.3 (#159), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Longer Query	1324	1246

Writing & Preference Granite 4.2 8B leads

Granite 4.2 8B: 49.6 (#189), Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Small 3
LMArena Text	1320	1234
LMArena Creative Writing	1236	1195
LMArena Multi-Turn	1301	1217
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	707

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Mistral Small 3?

Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B 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; Granite 4.2 8B lists at $0.06 and $0.25.

Is Granite 4.2 8B or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.5 versus 36.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Small 3 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.