Model comparison
Magistral Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5'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 1 category and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 39.1 to 26.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 6.3% for Magistral Small and 41.4% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 40.2 |
| Released | 2025-06-10 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 40K | 210K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 10 | 22 |
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Category by category
Coding Magistral Small leads
Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176), Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1264 |
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1461 |
Reasoning Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350), Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | 41.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 141.35 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 12.9% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1436 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | — |
Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261), Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1431 |
Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads
Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223), Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1432 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1223 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1404 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1442 |
| LMArena French | — | 1448 |
| LMArena German | — | 1451 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1385 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1395 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1409 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1415 |
Long Context Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1415 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Magistral Small: —, Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)
| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1421 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1374 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 993 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1423 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Magistral Small better than Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Magistral Small or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?
Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.