# Gemma 3 12B vs Mistral Small 3.2

> Gemma 3 12B and Mistral Small 3.2 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.8 vs 30.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-12b-vs-mistral-small-3-2
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 5

## Summary

- They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 12B scores higher in 1 category and Mistral Small 3.2 in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Small 3.2 leads 24.9 to 21.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 16.7% for Gemma 3 12B and 30.3% for Mistral Small 3.2.
- Gemma 3 12B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.0938 / $0.25 for Mistral Small 3.2.
- Mistral Small 3.2 accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 31.8 | 30.8 |
| Rank | 255 | 271 |
| Context | 131K | 256K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.0938 |
| Output $/M | $0.15 | $0.25 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 12B: 31.2 (#276)
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 17.4% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1281 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 12B: 25.3 (#101)
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 30.4% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 12B: 15.2 (#307)
- Mistral Small 3.2: 17.5 (#282)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 1% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 123.49 | 131.73 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 40.4% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1309 | — |
| DTBench | 48.8% | — |
| LMCA | 4.5% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 12B: 21.0 (#273)
- Mistral Small 3.2: 24.9 (#251)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.7% | 30.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1307 | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 12B: 26.5 (#250)
- Mistral Small 3.2: 26.8 (#249)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 39.5% | 49.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 12B: —
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| MindCube | 46.7% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 12B: 45.9 (#160)
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | — |
| LMArena German | 1370 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1335 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 12B: 68.8 (#179)
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1299 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 12B: 40.0 (#157)
- Mistral Small 3.2: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1317 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 12B: 47.7 (#205)
- Mistral Small 3.2: 45.1 (#219)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 12B | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1126 | 1255 |
| LMArena Text | 1334 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1331 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1334 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 12B better than Mistral Small 3.2?

Gemma 3 12B and Mistral Small 3.2 score almost the same on the Noometry Index (31.8 vs 30.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 12B or Mistral Small 3.2?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Mistral Small 3.2 lists at $0.0938 and $0.25.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Small 3.2 does, with 256K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 12B and Mistral Small 3.2 share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 12B has 24 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.2 has 6.