Model comparison
Mistral Large vs Step 3.5 Flash
Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Mistral AI
StepFunSummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Large scores higher in 0 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Step 3.5 Flash leads 42.6 to 18.2.
- Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Mistral Large.
- Step 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 31.9 | 42.3 |
| Released | 2024-02-26 | 2026-01-29 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 256K |
| Max output | 16K | 256K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6 | $0.30 |
| Results tracked | 51 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 34.3 (#240), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.4 (#105)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1277 | 1436 |
| SciCode | 36.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 30% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 47.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 38.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 264.7 | — |
| HumanEval+ | 62.2% | — |
| MBPP+ | 59.5% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Mistral Large: 28.6 (#89), Step 3.5 Flash: —
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 38.4% | — |
Reasoning Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 15.8 (#310), Step 3.5 Flash: 22.2 (#202)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1257 | 1411 |
| SimpleBench | 22.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.5% | — |
| DTBench | 65.1% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 50.1% | — |
| LMCA | 16.7% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 128.52 | — |
| ForecastBench | 57.1 | — |
| LiveBench | 48.4% | — |
Math Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 18.2 (#291), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1262 | 1408 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 8.5% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 28.1% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 42.5% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 50.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 0.3% | — |
Knowledge Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 30.1 (#230), Step 3.5 Flash: 39.6 (#132)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1232 | 1421 |
| GPQA Diamond | 51.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 59.9% | — |
| Confabulations | 21.4% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.5% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 43.5% | — |
| MMLU | 80% | — |
Multilingual Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 40.0 (#219), Step 3.5 Flash: 50.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1237 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1240 | 1447 |
| LMArena French | 1325 | 1421 |
| LMArena German | 1254 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1188 | 1354 |
| LMArena Korean | 1202 | 1352 |
| LMArena Russian | 1257 | 1385 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1268 | 1419 |
Instruction Following Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 67.9 (#191), Step 3.5 Flash: 73.1 (#124)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1249 | 1385 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 67.9% | — |
| IFEval | 87.7% | — |
Long Context Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 38.3 (#199), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#117)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1261 | 1402 |
Writing & Preference Step 3.5 Flash leads
Mistral Large: 40.7 (#242), Step 3.5 Flash: 58.8 (#113)
| Benchmark | Mistral Large | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1266 | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1243 | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1260 | 1405 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 69% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 985 | — |
| WildBench | 80.1% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 39.4% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Mistral Large better than Step 3.5 Flash?
Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 31.9 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Large or Step 3.5 Flash?
Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Mistral Large lists at $2 and $6.
Is Mistral Large or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?
Step 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 34.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 3.5 Flash does, with 256K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Mistral Large and Step 3.5 Flash share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Large has 51 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.