# Gemini 3.6 Flash vs Ministral 8B

> Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemini-3-6-flash-vs-ministral-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 14

## Summary

- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher in 9 categories and Ministral 8B in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Gemini 3.6 Flash leads 67.8 to 12.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 94.1% for Gemini 3.6 Flash and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.75 / $3.75 for Gemini 3.6 Flash.
- Gemini 3.6 Flash accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
- Ministral 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 54.1 | 27.8 |
| Rank | 30 | 321 |
| Context | 1.05M | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.75 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $3.75 | $0.10 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 49.6 (#45)
- Ministral 8B: 34.4 (#226)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1492 | 1202 |
| DeepSWE | 46.7% | — |
| FrontierCode | 34.4% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1536 | — |
| SciCode | 52.7% | — |
| WeirdML | 56.1% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 715.52 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 32.4 (#56)
- Ministral 8B: 16.2 (#140)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 46.9% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |
| GDP.pdf | 14% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 58.9 (#20)
- Ministral 8B: 17.7 (#279)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1486 | 1191 |
| DTBench | 95.5% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 89% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 91.2% | — |
| CritPt | 10.6% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 43% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 30% | — |
| LMCA | 44.9% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.36 | — |

## Math

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 57.0 (#33)
- Ministral 8B: 23.7 (#262)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1504 | 1188 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 58.9% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | 22% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 70.8% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 94.2% | — |
| ProofBench | 36% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |

## Knowledge

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 67.8 (#7)
- Ministral 8B: 12.5 (#292)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94.1% | 27.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1489 | 1170 |
| SimpleQA Verified | 66.2% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |

## Multimodal

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 38.7 (#55)
- Ministral 8B: —

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1297 | — |
| Blueprint-Bench 2 | 31.2% | — |
| Furniture Assembly | 23.3% | — |
| LMArena Document | 1456 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 56.8 (#17)
- Ministral 8B: 35.3 (#242)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1470 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1530 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 1490 | 1195 |
| LMArena French | 1501 | — |
| LMArena German | 1478 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1477 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1435 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1477 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 77.2 (#27)
- Ministral 8B: 60.7 (#245)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1467 | 1161 |

## Long Context

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 45.1 (#47)
- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#222)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1475 | 1212 |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemini 3.6 Flash: 68.3 (#26)
- Ministral 8B: 39.8 (#241)

| Benchmark | Gemini 3.6 Flash | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1478 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1464 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1481 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1604 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemini 3.6 Flash better than Ministral 8B?

Gemini 3.6 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.1 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.6 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.6 Flash or Ministral 8B?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Gemini 3.6 Flash lists at $0.75 and $3.75.

### Is Gemini 3.6 Flash or Ministral 8B better for coding?

Gemini 3.6 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.6 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.6 Flash does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.6 Flash and Ministral 8B share?

14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.6 Flash has 46 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.