# Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Step 5 Preview

> Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.9 to 40.2 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-medium-3-5-vs-step-5-preview
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 15

## Summary

- They share 15 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores higher in 0 categories and Step 5 Preview in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Step 5 Preview leads 40.0 to 17.3.
- Step 5 Preview is cheaper at $1 / $2.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Mistral Medium 3.5.
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 262K.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 40.2 | 47.9 |
| Rank | 152 | 58 |
| Context | 262K | 1.02M |
| Input $/M | $1.50 | $1 |
| Output $/M | $7.50 | $2.70 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 36.0 (#213)
- Step 5 Preview: 51.8 (#36)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1264 | 1564 |
| LMArena Coding | 1461 | 1480 |
| SciCode | — | 58.9% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 17.3 (#295)
- Step 5 Preview: 40.0 (#57)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1436 | 1465 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 41.4% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 12.9% | — |
| CritPt | — | 20.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 141.35 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 39.1 (#113)
- Step 5 Preview: 46.1 (#72)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1431 | 1470 |
| ProofBench | — | 42% |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 40.0 (#126)
- Step 5 Preview: 41.2 (#112)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1432 | 1470 |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 38.3 (#65)
- Step 5 Preview: 41.0 (#41)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1223 | 1267 |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 51.9 (#100)
- Step 5 Preview: 53.8 (#54)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1404 | 1432 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1442 | 1519 |
| LMArena Russian | 1395 | 1436 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1409 | 1439 |
| LMArena French | 1448 | — |
| LMArena German | 1451 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1385 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 74.6 (#90)
- Step 5 Preview: 76.0 (#50)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1415 | 1444 |

## Long Context

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 43.2 (#103)
- Step 5 Preview: 44.5 (#64)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1415 | 1455 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Medium 3.5: 58.5 (#117)
- Step 5 Preview: 62.8 (#71)

| Benchmark | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1421 | 1442 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1374 | 1410 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1423 | 1447 |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 993 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.9 to 40.2 on the Noometry Index.

### Which is cheaper, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Step 5 Preview?

Step 5 Preview is cheaper. It lists at $1 per million input tokens and $2.70 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.5 lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Mistral Medium 3.5 or Step 5 Preview better for coding?

Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 51.8 versus 36.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 262K.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Medium 3.5 and Step 5 Preview share?

15 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Medium 3.5 has 22 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 18.