Model comparison
Grok 4.1 Fast vs Ministral 8B
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.1 Fast's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 15 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.1 Fast scores higher in 8 categories and Ministral 8B in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.1 Fast leads 43.4 to 18.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 69.6% for Grok 4.1 Fast and 11.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.20 / $0.50 for Grok 4.1 Fast.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2025-06-27 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 30K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Grok 4.1 Fast: 34.1 (#245), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1411 | 1202 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1242 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 394.93 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#39), Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 69.6% | 11.1% |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.1% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1171 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,107 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 43.4 (#49), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 87.7% | 45.7% |
| SimpleBench | 56% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.4% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 31.9 (#221), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1408 | 1188 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 60.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.1 (#207), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.8% | 7.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1399 | 1170 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27.1% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 37.0 (#76), Ministral 8B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1201 | — |
Multilingual Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.0 (#114), Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1391 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1441 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1415 | — |
| LMArena German | 1404 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1413 | — |
Instruction Following Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.7 (#133), Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | 1161 |
Long Context Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#126), Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1390 | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.2 (#131), Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1408 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1394 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1327 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.1 Fast better than Ministral 8B?
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.4 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Grok 4.1 Fast's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.1 Fast or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Grok 4.1 Fast lists at $0.20 and $0.50.
Is Grok 4.1 Fast or Ministral 8B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (34.1 vs 35.0); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.1 Fast and Ministral 8B share?
15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.1 Fast has 32 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.