# Granite 4.0 Micro vs Mistral Small 3.1

> Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.4 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small 3.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-0-micro-vs-mistral-small-3-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 8

## Summary

- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 2 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Mistral Small 3.1 leads 22.6 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is MMLU-Pro: 39.5% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 61% for Mistral Small 3.1.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.35 / $0.56 for Mistral Small 3.1.
- Granite 4.0 Micro accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 28.8 | 31.4 |
| Rank | 312 | 263 |
| Context | 131K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | $0.35 |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | $0.56 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | — | 1309 |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 18.5 (#261)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1278 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.48 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 11.2 (#301)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 3.9% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | 24.8% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1261 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#299)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 41.9% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | 61% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | 39.2% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1258 |

## Multimodal

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1136 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1255 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1254 |
| LMArena French | — | 1270 |
| LMArena German | — | 1266 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1210 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1206 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1263 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1283 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 70.0 (#164)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | 75% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1264 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1300 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#212)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| WildBench | 67% | 78.8% |
| LMArena Text | — | 1278 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1253 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 761 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1270 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Mistral Small 3.1?

Mistral Small 3.1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.4 to 28.8 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 9.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Small 3.1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Mistral Small 3.1?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; Mistral Small 3.1 lists at $0.35 and $0.56.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.0 Micro does, with 131K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.