# Command A vs Ministral 8B

> Command A is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.5 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 29× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Command A's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/command-a-vs-ministral-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 15

## Summary

- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Command A scores higher in 7 categories and Ministral 8B in 2 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Command A leads 37.1 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 57.1% for Command A and 11.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $2.50 / $10 for Command A.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

## Snapshot

| | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 36.5 | 28.2 |
| Rank | 215 | 325 |
| Context | 256K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $2.50 | $0.15 |
| Output $/M | $10 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Command A: 27.2 (#322)
- Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1330 | 1202 |
| Aider Polyglot | 12% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Command A: 35.9 (#40)
- Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 57.1% | 11.1% |

## Reasoning

- Command A: 18.3 (#283)
- Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1326 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | 45.7% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 28.8% | — |
| LMCA | 10.3% | — |

## Math

- Command A: 36.2 (#171)
- Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1300 | 1188 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |

## Knowledge

- Command A: 37.1 (#159)
- Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.3% | 7.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1295 | 1170 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27.1% |

## Multilingual

- Command A: 45.3 (#170)
- Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1313 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1327 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1314 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1351 | — |
| LMArena German | 1341 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1285 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1285 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1347 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Command A: 69.1 (#177)
- Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1309 | 1161 |

## Long Context

- Command A: 40.6 (#151)
- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1334 | 1212 |

## Writing & Preference

- Command A: 47.6 (#208)
- Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)

| Benchmark | Command A | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1331 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1319 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1339 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1145 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Command A better than Ministral 8B?

Command A is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.5 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 29× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Command A's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Command A or Ministral 8B?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Command A lists at $2.50 and $10.

### Is Command A or Ministral 8B better for coding?

Ministral 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.0 versus 27.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

### How many benchmarks do Command A and Ministral 8B share?

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Command A has 24 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.