# Grok-3 mini vs Mistral Small 3.1

> Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-3-mini-vs-mistral-small-3-1
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 25

## Summary

- They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-3 mini scores higher in 7 categories and Mistral Small 3.1 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Grok-3 mini leads 40.3 to 13.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 77.8% for Grok-3 mini and 3.9% for Mistral Small 3.1.
- Mistral Small 3.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 41.0 | 31.4 |
| Rank | 130 | 263 |
| Context | — | 128K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.35 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.56 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok-3 mini: 40.4 (#126)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1380 | 1309 |
| Aider Polyglot | 49.3% | — |
| WeirdML | 42.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- Grok-3 mini: 13.8 (#323)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1374 | 1278 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.35 | 127.48 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 61.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 16.5% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 1% |

## Math

- Grok-3 mini: 40.3 (#78)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 77.8% | 3.9% |
| Omni-MATH | 31.8% | 24.8% |
| LMArena Math | 1386 | 1261 |
| MATH Level 5 | 90.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 5.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok-3 mini: 46.3 (#75)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | 41.9% |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.9% | 61% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 67.5% | 39.2% |
| LMArena Expert | 1395 | 1258 |
| Confabulations | 10.8% | — |

## Multimodal

- Grok-3 mini: —
- Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1136 |

## Multilingual

- Grok-3 mini: 48.3 (#141)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1352 | 1255 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1387 | 1254 |
| LMArena French | 1357 | 1270 |
| LMArena German | 1350 | 1266 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1343 | 1210 |
| LMArena Korean | 1336 | 1206 |
| LMArena Russian | 1352 | 1263 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1379 | 1283 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok-3 mini: 78.7 (#8)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 95.1% | 75% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1356 | 1264 |

## Long Context

- Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#142)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1372 | 1300 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok-3 mini: 52.7 (#163)
- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Mistral Small 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1278 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1342 | 1253 |
| WildBench | 65.1% | 78.8% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1355 | 1270 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 73.5% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 761 |

## FAQ

### Is Grok-3 mini better than Mistral Small 3.1?

Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.0 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Grok-3 mini or Mistral Small 3.1 better for coding?

Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.4 versus 37.7 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Grok-3 mini and Mistral Small 3.1 share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-3 mini has 35 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3.1 has 28.