# Magistral Small vs Ministral 8B

> Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

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

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 3 categories and Ministral 8B in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Magistral Small leads 30.9 to 12.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 56.1% for Magistral Small and 27.1% for Ministral 8B.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.15 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- Ministral 8B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 28.2 |
| Rank | 296 | 325 |
| Context | 128K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $0.15 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)
- Ministral 8B: 35.0 (#230)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1202 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Magistral Small: —
- Ministral 8B: 16.4 (#148)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 11.1% |

## Reasoning

- Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)
- Ministral 8B: 18.4 (#281)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 61.3% | 45.7% |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1191 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | — |

## Math

- Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)
- Ministral 8B: 25.7 (#267)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1188 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 14.9% |

## Knowledge

- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)
- Ministral 8B: 12.6 (#297)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 27.1% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 7.4% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1170 |

## Multilingual

- Magistral Small: —
- Ministral 8B: 35.1 (#247)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1165 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1193 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1195 |

## Instruction Following

- Magistral Small: —
- Ministral 8B: 60.5 (#250)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1161 |

## Long Context

- Magistral Small: —
- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#227)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1212 |

## Writing & Preference

- Magistral Small: —
- Ministral 8B: 39.6 (#246)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Ministral 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1191 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1175 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1166 |

## FAQ

### Is Magistral Small better than Ministral 8B?

Magistral Small is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.2 to 28.2 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Magistral Small's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Ministral 8B?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

### Is Magistral Small or Ministral 8B better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 35.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 8B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Ministral 8B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Ministral 8B has 17.