# Llama 3.2 3B vs Mistral

> Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 29.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-mistral
- 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 3 categories and Mistral in 5 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Llama 3.2 3B leads 29.7 to 16.6.
- Llama 3.2 3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 28.9 | 29.9 |
| Rank | 321 | 303 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)
- Mistral: 33.8 (#250)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | 1162 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)
- Mistral: —

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

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)
- Mistral: 22.2 (#200)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | 1149 |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)
- Mistral: 22.3 (#278)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1126 | 1180 |
| Omni-MATH | — | 7.2% |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)
- Mistral: 16.6 (#288)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | 1125 |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 27.7% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 30.3% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)
- Mistral: 32.8 (#254)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | 1129 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | 1109 |
| LMArena German | 1056 | 1155 |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | 1168 |
| LMArena French | — | 1180 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1013 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1032 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1143 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)
- Mistral: 52.6 (#288)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | 1152 |
| IFEval | — | 56.8% |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)
- Mistral: 35.0 (#245)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1100 | 1153 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)
- Mistral: 37.0 (#260)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Mistral |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1165 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | 1158 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | 1147 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | — |
| WildBench | — | 66% |

## FAQ

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

Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 29.9), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

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

Mistral scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.8 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

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

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Mistral has 22.