# GPT-4.1 mini vs Magistral Small

> GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gpt-4-1-mini-vs-magistral-small
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 10

## Summary

- They share 10 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 2 categories and Magistral Small in 2 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Magistral Small leads 37.8 to 30.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 48.6% for GPT-4.1 mini and 6.3% for Magistral Small.
- GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.60 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 128K.
- Magistral Small has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 33.5 | 29.9 |
| Rank | 232 | 289 |
| Context | 1.05M | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.40 | $0.50 |
| Output $/M | $1.60 | $1.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- GPT-4.1 mini: 30.4 (#286)
- Magistral Small: 37.8 (#172)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 40.4% | 35.2% |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | 23.9% | — |
| Aider Polyglot | 32.4% | — |
| WeirdML | 37.6% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 48.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1367 | — |
| CadEval | 16% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- GPT-4.1 mini: 33.0 (#52)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 50.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- GPT-4.1 mini: 10.9 (#335)
- Magistral Small: 6.9 (#345)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | 0% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 48.6% | 6.3% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 3.5% | 5% |
| CritPt | 0% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 7% | 3% |
| DTBench | 68.8% | 61.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.01 | 133.19 |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1349 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 7% | — |
| LMCA | 21.1% | — |

## Math

- GPT-4.1 mini: 23.1 (#264)
- Magistral Small: 24.9 (#253)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 44.7% | 30% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 6.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 49.1% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1343 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 87.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 4.5% | — |

## Knowledge

- GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#183)
- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#215)

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 65.8% | 56.1% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 12.7% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 78.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 61.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1338 | — |

## Multimodal

- GPT-4.1 mini: 35.2 (#77)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1181 | — |

## Multilingual

- GPT-4.1 mini: 45.9 (#161)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1318 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1329 | — |
| LMArena French | 1357 | — |
| LMArena German | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1298 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1324 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1319 | — |

## Instruction Following

- GPT-4.1 mini: 73.9 (#113)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 90.4% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1332 | — |

## Long Context

- GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#270)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1344 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- GPT-4.1 mini: 48.8 (#193)
- Magistral Small: —

| Benchmark | GPT-4.1 mini | Magistral Small |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1341 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1300 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1147 | — |
| WildBench | 83.8% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1354 | — |

## FAQ

### Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Magistral Small?

GPT-4.1 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.5 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Magistral Small?

GPT-4.1 mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

### Is GPT-4.1 mini or Magistral Small better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.8 versus 30.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Magistral Small share?

10 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Magistral Small has 10.