# Ministral 3B vs Mistral Small 3

> Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index.

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

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 3B scores higher in 1 category and Mistral Small 3 in 2 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Mistral Small 3 leads 25.0 to 10.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 25.3% for Ministral 3B and 47.3% for Mistral Small 3.
- Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.04 per million input/output tokens, against $0.05 / $0.08 for Mistral Small 3.
- Ministral 3B accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 33K.

## Snapshot

| | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Noometry Index | 25.6 | 30.9 |
| Rank | 336 | 268 |
| Context | 128K | 33K |
| Input $/M | $0.04 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.04 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Ministral 3B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 36.0 (#203)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 45.3% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1246 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 50.4% |

## Reasoning

- Ministral 3B: 17.7 (#278)
- Mistral Small 3: 18.2 (#269)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 118.08 | 127.06 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1233 |
| DTBench | 51.7% | — |
| LMCA | 5.5% | — |

## Math

- Ministral 3B: 24.5 (#257)
- Mistral Small 3: 15.3 (#290)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 6.7% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1240 |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.4% | — |

## Knowledge

- Ministral 3B: 10.4 (#297)
- Mistral Small 3: 25.0 (#258)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 25.3% | 47.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 25.2% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1202 |

## Multilingual

- Ministral 3B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.5 (#231)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | 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

- Ministral 3B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 63.9 (#224)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1214 |

## Long Context

- Ministral 3B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 37.8 (#206)

| Benchmark | Ministral 3B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1246 |

## Writing & Preference

- Ministral 3B: —
- Mistral Small 3: 32.4 (#275)

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

## FAQ

### Is Ministral 3B better than Mistral Small 3?

Mistral Small 3 is the stronger model overall, scoring 30.9 to 25.6 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B or Mistral Small 3?

Ministral 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.04 per million output tokens; Mistral Small 3 lists at $0.05 and $0.08.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 3B does, with 128K tokens against 33K.

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

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 3B has 6 scored results on Noometry and Mistral Small 3 has 24.