# Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Small 3

> Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Granite 4.2 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/granite-4-2-8b-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 11

## Summary

- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Granite 4.2 8B scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 0 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Granite 4.2 8B leads 49.8 to 32.4.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.06 / $0.25 for Granite 4.2 8B.
- Granite 4.2 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | IBM | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 40.0 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 143 | 268 |
| Context | 131K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.06 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.25 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Granite 4.2 8B: 39.9 (#138)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |

## Reasoning

- Granite 4.2 8B: 25.5 (#130)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1327 | 1233 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.06 |

## Math

- Granite 4.2 8B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1240 |

## Knowledge

- Granite 4.2 8B: 37.7 (#144)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1380 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multilingual

- Granite 4.2 8B: 44.5 (#173)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1299 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1361 | 1204 |
| LMArena Russian | 1283 | 1216 |
| LMArena French | — | 1202 |
| LMArena German | — | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |

## Instruction Following

- Granite 4.2 8B: 68.7 (#183)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1298 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Granite 4.2 8B: 40.2 (#154)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1323 | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Granite 4.2 8B: 49.8 (#183)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

| Benchmark | Granite 4.2 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1319 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1238 | 1195 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1299 | 1217 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |

## FAQ

### Is Granite 4.2 8B better than Mistral Small 3?

Granite 4.2 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.0 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Mistral Small 3 costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Granite 4.2 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Granite 4.2 8B or Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Granite 4.2 8B lists at $0.06 and $0.25.

### Is Granite 4.2 8B or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Granite 4.2 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 39.9 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Granite 4.2 8B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Small 3 share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Granite 4.2 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.