Model comparison
Magistral Medium vs Mistral Small 3.1
Magistral Medium is the stronger model overall, scoring 35.2 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 6.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Medium's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Medium scores higher in 5 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 3 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Magistral Medium leads 35.1 to 14.7.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $5 for Magistral Medium.
- Magistral Medium accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 35.2 | 31.7 |
| Released | 2025-03-17 | 2025-03-17 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 128K |
| Max output | 16K | 102K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.35 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $5 | $0.56 |
| Results tracked | 22 | 28 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Magistral Medium: 39.1 (#161), Mistral Small 3.1: 38.3 (#179)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1319 | 1309 |
| SciCode | 39.2% | — |
Reasoning Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Magistral Medium: 8.6 (#348), Mistral Small 3.1: 19.7 (#254)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1267 | 1278 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 16.2% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 6.1% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.48 |
Math Magistral Medium leads
Magistral Medium: 35.1 (#189), Mistral Small 3.1: 14.7 (#301)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1250 | 1262 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 3.9% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 24.8% |
Knowledge Magistral Medium leads
Magistral Medium: 33.5 (#202), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#271)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1223 | 1257 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 41.9% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 61% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 39.2% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Magistral Medium: —, Mistral Small 3.1: 33.2 (#99)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1136 |
Multilingual Mistral Small 3.1 leads
Magistral Medium: 39.6 (#224), Mistral Small 3.1: 41.2 (#209)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1232 | 1255 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1227 | 1253 |
| LMArena French | 1267 | 1273 |
| LMArena German | 1248 | 1266 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1175 | 1208 |
| LMArena Korean | 1125 | 1206 |
| LMArena Russian | 1224 | 1263 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1271 | 1283 |
Instruction Following Magistral Medium leads
Magistral Medium: 66.0 (#211), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.6 (#230)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1254 | 1264 |
| IFEval | — | 75% |
Long Context Too close to call
Magistral Medium: 39.3 (#183), Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1295 | 1299 |
Writing & Preference Magistral Medium leads
Magistral Medium: 46.3 (#219), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.0 (#259)
| Benchmark | Magistral Medium | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1255 | 1277 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1245 | 1253 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1275 | 1270 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 761 |
| WildBench | — | 78.8% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Medium better than Mistral Small 3.1?
Magistral Medium is the stronger model overall, scoring 35.2 to 31.7 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 6.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Medium's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Medium or Mistral Small 3.1?
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper. It lists at $0.35 per million input tokens and $0.56 per million output tokens; Magistral Medium lists at $2 and $5.
Is Magistral Medium or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (39.1 vs 38.3); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Magistral Medium does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Medium and Mistral Small 3.1 share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Medium has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.