# Magistral Small vs Mistral Medium 3.5

> Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/magistral-small-vs-mistral-medium-3-5
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 1 category and Mistral Medium 3.5 in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Mistral Medium 3.5 leads 39.1 to 26.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 6.3% for Magistral Small and 41.4% for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Magistral Small is cheaper at $0.50 / $1.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.2 | 40.2 |
| Rank | 296 | 152 |
| Context | 128K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Magistral Small: 38.4 (#176)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1264 |
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1461 |

## Reasoning

- Magistral Small: 6.8 (#350)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | 41.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 141.35 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 12.9% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1436 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | — |

## Math

- Magistral Small: 26.2 (#261)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1431 |

## Knowledge

- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#223)
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1432 |

## Multimodal

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1223 |

## Multilingual

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1404 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1442 |
| LMArena French | — | 1448 |
| LMArena German | — | 1451 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1385 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1395 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1409 |

## Instruction Following

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1415 |

## Long Context

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1415 |

## Writing & Preference

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1421 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1374 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | — | 993 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1423 |

## FAQ

### Is Magistral Small better than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.2 to 30.2 on the Noometry Index. Magistral Small costs 4.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Mistral Medium 3.5's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Magistral Small or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Magistral Small is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $1.50 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Magistral Small or Mistral Medium 3.5 better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.4 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Mistral Medium 3.5 does, with 262K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Mistral Medium 3.5 share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22.