Model comparison
Magistral Small vs Ministral 8B
Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AISummary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 3 categories and Ministral 8B in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Magistral Small leads 30.9 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 56.1% for Magistral Small and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | Ministral 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 28.2 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | 2024-10-01 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 262K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.15 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 17 |
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Category by category
Coding Magistral Small leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1202 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
Reasoning Ministral 8B leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 61.3% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1191 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | — |
Math Too close to call
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1188 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |
Knowledge Magistral Small leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 27.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1170 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1195 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1161 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1212 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1166 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than Ministral 8B?
Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Ministral 8B?
Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.
Is Magistral Small or Ministral 8B better for coding?
Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Ministral 8B share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.