# Llama 3.2 3B vs Ministral 8B

> Llama 3.2 3B and Ministral 8B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 28.2), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-ministral-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 4 categories and Ministral 8B in 5 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Llama 3.2 3B leads 29.7 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 21.9% for Llama 3.2 3B and 11.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $0.15 / $0.15 for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 28.9 | 28.2 |
| Rank | 321 | 325 |
| Context | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.15 |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)
- Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | 1202 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)
- Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 21.9% | 11.1% |
| BALROG | 10.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)
- Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | 1191 |
| DTBench | — | 45.7% |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)
- Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1126 | 1188 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)
- Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | 1170 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)
- Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | 1195 |
| LMArena German | 1056 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)
- Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | 1161 |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)
- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1100 | 1212 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)
- Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | 1166 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Ministral 8B?

Llama 3.2 3B and Ministral 8B score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 28.2), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 3B or Ministral 8B?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Ministral 8B lists at $0.15 and $0.15.

### Is Llama 3.2 3B or Ministral 8B better for coding?

Ministral 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.0 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Ministral 8B share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.