# Mistral Small 3.1 vs Yi-Lightning

> Yi-Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.5 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/mistral-small-3-1-vs-yi-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher in 2 categories and Yi-Lightning in 6 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Yi-Lightning leads 33.5 to 13.7.
- Mistral Small 3.1 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral AI | 01.AI |
| Noometry Index | 31.4 | 36.5 |
| Rank | 263 | 206 |
| Context | 128K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.35 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.56 | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.7 (#175)
- Yi-Lightning: 27.0 (#315)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1309 | 1313 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 12.9% |

## Reasoning

- Mistral Small 3.1: 18.9 (#249)
- Yi-Lightning: 24.9 (#137)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1278 | 1302 |
| Chess Puzzles | 1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 127.48 | — |

## Math

- Mistral Small 3.1: 13.7 (#295)
- Yi-Lightning: 33.5 (#173)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1261 | 1300 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 3.9% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 24.8% | — |

## Knowledge

- Mistral Small 3.1: 22.6 (#266)
- Yi-Lightning: 34.8 (#182)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1258 | 1286 |
| GPQA Diamond | 41.9% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 61% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 39.2% | — |

## Multimodal

- Mistral Small 3.1: 32.6 (#93)
- Yi-Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1136 | — |

## Multilingual

- Mistral Small 3.1: 41.4 (#204)
- Yi-Lightning: 42.4 (#191)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1255 | 1269 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1254 | 1320 |
| LMArena French | 1270 | 1304 |
| LMArena German | 1266 | 1267 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1210 | 1228 |
| LMArena Korean | 1206 | 1192 |
| LMArena Russian | 1263 | 1255 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1283 | 1315 |

## Instruction Following

- Mistral Small 3.1: 63.8 (#225)
- Yi-Lightning: 67.6 (#191)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1264 | 1278 |
| IFEval | 75% | — |

## Long Context

- Mistral Small 3.1: 39.5 (#172)
- Yi-Lightning: 39.4 (#176)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1300 | 1297 |

## Writing & Preference

- Mistral Small 3.1: 37.2 (#254)
- Yi-Lightning: 50.4 (#178)

| Benchmark | Mistral Small 3.1 | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1278 | 1302 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1253 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1270 | 1311 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 761 | — |
| WildBench | 78.8% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 better than Yi-Lightning?

Yi-Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.5 to 31.4 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Mistral Small 3.1 or Yi-Lightning better for coding?

Mistral Small 3.1 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 27.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Mistral Small 3.1 and Yi-Lightning share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Mistral Small 3.1 has 28 scored results on Noometry and Yi-Lightning has 18.