Model comparison

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Mistral Small 3.1

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.6 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3.1 costs 7.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 18 shared benchmarks.

Mistral Medium 3.5

Mistral AI

39.6

Rank #151 Confirmed

Mistral Small 3.1

Mistral AI

31.4

Rank #263 Confirmed

Summary

They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 2 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 36.4 to 13.7.
Mistral Small 3.1 is cheaper at $0.35 / $0.56 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

Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 3.1 specifications
	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
Provider	Mistral AI	Mistral AI
Noometry Index	39.6	31.4
Released	—	2025-03-17
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	262K	128K
Max output	210K	102K
Input $ / M tokens	$1.50	$0.35
Output $ / M tokens	$7.50	$0.56
Results tracked	22	28

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Mistral Small 3.1 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 35.7 (#208), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Coding	1461	1309
LMArena WebDev	1263	—

Reasoning Mistral Small 3.1 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 16.6 (#290), Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Hard Prompts	1436	1278
Epoch Capabilities Index	141.42	127.48
Kagi LLM Benchmark	41.4%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	12.9%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	1%

Math Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.4 (#113), Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Math	1432	1261
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	3.9%
Omni-MATH	—	24.8%

Knowledge Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.3 (#123), Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Expert	1431	1258
GPQA Diamond	—	41.9%
MMLU-Pro	—	61%
GPQA (HELM)	—	39.2%

Multimodal Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 37.6 (#64), Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Vision	1222	1136

Multilingual Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 52.1 (#93), Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Non-English	1405	1255
LMArena Chinese	1443	1254
LMArena French	1448	1270
LMArena German	1453	1266
LMArena Korean	1387	1206
LMArena Russian	1396	1263
LMArena Spanish	1406	1283
LMArena Japanese	—	1210

Instruction Following Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.7 (#87), Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Instruction Following	1414	1264
IFEval	—	75%

Long Context Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#101), Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Longer Query	1414	1300

Writing & Preference Mistral Medium 3.5 leads

Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.6 (#113), Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Mistral Medium 3.5	Mistral Small 3.1
LMArena Text	1421	1278
LMArena Creative Writing	1372	1253
LMArena Multi-Turn	1423	1270
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	—	761
WildBench	—	78.8%
EQ-Bench 4	993	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Mistral Small 3.1?

Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 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; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?

Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 35.7 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 Mistral Medium 3.5 and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.