Model comparison
Grok-3 mini vs Mistral Small 3
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 20 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 20 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-3 mini scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Grok-3 mini leads 40.3 to 15.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 77.8% for Grok-3 mini and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 41.0 | 30.9 |
| Released | 2025-04-09 | 2025-01-30 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | — | 33K |
| Max output | — | 16K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.05 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.08 |
| Results tracked | 35 | 24 |
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Category by category
Coding Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 40.4 (#126), Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1246 |
| Aider Polyglot | 49.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 42.6% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |
Reasoning Mistral Small 3 leads
Grok-3 mini: 13.8 (#323), Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1374 | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.35 | 127.06 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 61.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 16.5% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
Math Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 40.3 (#78), Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 77.8% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | 1386 | 1240 |
| Omni-MATH | 31.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 90.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 5.9% | — |
Knowledge Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 46.3 (#75), Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | 10.8% | 25.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1395 | 1202 |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.9% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 67.5% | — |
Multilingual Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 48.3 (#141), Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1352 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1387 | 1204 |
| LMArena French | 1357 | 1202 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1343 | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | 1336 | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | 1352 | 1216 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1379 | — |
Instruction Following Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 78.7 (#8), Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1356 | 1214 |
| IFEval | 95.1% | — |
Long Context Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#142), Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1372 | 1246 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |
Writing & Preference Grok-3 mini leads
Grok-3 mini: 52.7 (#163), Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)
| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1342 | 1195 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1355 | 1217 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 73.5% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |
| WildBench | 65.1% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok-3 mini better than Mistral Small 3?
Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is Grok-3 mini or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?
Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Grok-3 mini and Mistral Small 3 share?
20 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-3 mini has 35 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.