# Magistral Small vs Mistral Small 3

> Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/magistral-small-vs-mistral-small-3
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Magistral Small scores higher in 3 categories and Mistral Small 3 in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Mistral Small 3 leads 18.2 to 6.9.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 30% for Magistral Small and 6.7% for Mistral Small 3.
- Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $1.50 for Magistral Small.
- Magistral Small accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 29.9 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 289 | 268 |
| Context | 128K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.50 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $1.50 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Magistral Small: 37.8 (#172)
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.2% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |

## Reasoning

- Magistral Small: 6.9 (#345)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 3% | 0% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 133.19 | 127.06 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 6.3% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 5% | — |
| CritPt | 0.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1233 |
| DTBench | 61.3% | — |

## Math

- Magistral Small: 24.9 (#253)
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 30% | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1240 |

## Knowledge

- Magistral Small: 30.9 (#215)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1202 |

## Multilingual

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1198 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1204 |
| LMArena French | — | 1202 |
| LMArena German | — | 1211 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1111 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1188 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1216 |

## Instruction Following

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Magistral Small: —
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

| Benchmark | Magistral Small | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1234 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1195 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 707 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1217 |

## FAQ

### Is Magistral Small better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 29.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Magistral Small 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; Magistral Small lists at $0.50 and $1.50.

### Is Magistral Small or Mistral Small 3 better for coding?

Magistral Small scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.8 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Magistral Small does, with 128K tokens against 33K.

### How many benchmarks do Magistral Small and Mistral Small 3 share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Magistral Small has 10 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.