# Ministral 8B vs Step 3.5 Flash

> Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 1.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/ministral-8b-vs-step-3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 12

## Summary

- They share 12 benchmarks with published results for both. Ministral 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Step 3.5 Flash leads 39.0 to 12.5.
- Ministral 8B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.10 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.30 for Step 3.5 Flash.
- Step 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 27.8 | 41.7 |
| Rank | 321 | 116 |
| Context | 128K | 256K |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $0.10 | $0.30 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Ministral 8B: 34.4 (#226)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 41.7 (#106)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1202 | 1436 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Ministral 8B: 16.2 (#140)
- Step 3.5 Flash: —

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 11.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Ministral 8B: 17.7 (#279)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 21.2 (#202)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | 1411 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
| DTBench | 45.7% | — |

## Math

- Ministral 8B: 23.7 (#262)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 40.6 (#77)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1188 | 1408 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| MATH Level 5 | 14.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Ministral 8B: 12.5 (#292)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 39.0 (#127)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1170 | 1422 |
| GPQA Diamond | 27.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |

## Multilingual

- Ministral 8B: 35.3 (#242)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 50.7 (#115)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1165 | 1386 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1193 | 1448 |
| LMArena Russian | 1195 | 1385 |
| LMArena French | — | 1421 |
| LMArena German | — | 1404 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1353 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1350 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1419 |

## Instruction Following

- Ministral 8B: 60.7 (#245)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 73.3 (#119)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1161 | 1385 |

## Long Context

- Ministral 8B: 36.7 (#222)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#112)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1212 | 1402 |

## Writing & Preference

- Ministral 8B: 39.8 (#241)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 59.0 (#108)

| Benchmark | Ministral 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1191 | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1175 | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1166 | 1405 |

## FAQ

### Is Ministral 8B better than Step 3.5 Flash?

Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 27.8 on the Noometry Index. Ministral 8B costs 1.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 3.5 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B or Step 3.5 Flash?

Ministral 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.10 per million output tokens; Step 3.5 Flash lists at $0.10 and $0.30.

### Is Ministral 8B or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?

Step 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 34.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Step 3.5 Flash does, with 256K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Ministral 8B and Step 3.5 Flash share?

12 benchmarks have published results for both models. Ministral 8B has 17 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.