# Granite 4.0 Micro vs Mistral Small 3

> Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

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

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.0 Micro scores higher in 3 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Mistral Small 3 leads 25.1 to 9.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 28.3% for Granite 4.0 Micro and 47.3% for Mistral Small 3.
- Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.05 / $0.08 for Mistral Small 3.
- Granite 4.0 Micro accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 29.0 | 31.2 |
| Rank | 318 | 278 |
| Context | 131K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.017 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.11 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3: 36.5 (#207)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.9 (#273)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1233 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.07 |

## Math

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307)
- Mistral Small 3: 16.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 2.8% | 6.7% |
| Omni-MATH | 20.9% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1240 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.1 (#263)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 28.3% | 47.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | 39.5% | — |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 30.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1202 |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.3 (#236)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1204 |
| LMArena French | — | 1203 |
| LMArena German | — | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1216 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.7 (#229)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 84.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.0 Micro: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#211)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.2 (#280)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.0 Micro | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |
| WildBench | 67% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1217 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.0 Micro better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.2 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.0 Micro or Mistral Small 3?

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 lists at $0.05 and $0.08.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.0 Micro does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.0 Micro and Mistral Small 3 share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.0 Micro has 8 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.