# Llama 3.2 3B vs Mistral Small 3

> Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 28.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 16

## Summary

- They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 3 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Llama 3.2 3B leads 29.9 to 15.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 28.3% for Llama 3.2 3B and 50.4% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.05 / $0.33 for Llama 3.2 3B.
- Llama 3.2 3B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 28.4 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 318 | 268 |
| Context | 131K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.1 (#314)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | 45.3% |
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | 50.4% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 19.9 (#135)
- Mistral Small 3: —

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 21.9% | — |
| BALROG | 10.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#225)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | 1233 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 127.06 |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.9 (#213)
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1126 | 1240 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.1 (#232)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | 1202 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.4 (#276)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | 1204 |
| LMArena German | 1056 | 1211 |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | 1216 |
| LMArena French | — | 1202 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.3 (#270)
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#256)
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1101 | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.9 (#302)
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | 1217 |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 28.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 3B 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; Llama 3.2 3B lists at $0.05 and $0.33.

### Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Mistral Small 3 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.0 versus 27.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Llama 3.2 3B does, with 131K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Small 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.