Model Comparison

Claude 3 Opus vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Claude 3 Opus has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Verdict: Claude 3 Opus vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct — which is better?

Claude 3 Opus (by Anthropic) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct (by Mistral AI) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (HumanEval, MATH). Claude 3 Opus has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Choose Claude 3 Opus if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 5 shared benchmarks

Choose Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct if…

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2025
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

5 benchmarks

Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (HumanEval, MATH).

Claude 3 Opus has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Thu Jul 02 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude 3 Opus specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only Claude 3 Opus specifies output context (200,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude 3 Opus
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Thu Jul 02 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Claude 3 Opus and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Claude 3 Opus

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3 Opus is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude 3 Opus

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3 Opus was released on 2024-02-29, while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct was released on 2025-03-17.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is 13 months newer than Claude 3 Opus.

Claude 3 Opus

Feb 29, 2024

2.3 years ago

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Mar 17, 2025

1.3 years ago

1.0yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Anthropic
Larger context window (200,000 tokens)
Higher GPQA score (50.4% vs 46.0%)
Higher MMLU score (86.8% vs 80.6%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (68.5% vs 66.8%)
Mistral AI
Has open weights
Higher HumanEval score (88.4% vs 84.9%)
Higher MATH score (69.3% vs 60.1%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Opus and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude 3 Opus
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Anthropic
Claude 3 Opus
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Claude 3 Opus or Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Claude 3 Opus has a slight edge in benchmark performance. Claude 3 Opus is made by Anthropic and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Claude 3 Opus compare to Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Claude 3 Opus scores ARC-C: 96.4%, HellaSwag: 95.4%, GSM8k: 95.0%, MGSM: 90.7%, BIG-Bench Hard: 86.8%. Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct scores HumanEval: 88.4%, MMLU: 80.6%, TriviaQA: 80.5%, MBPP: 74.7%, MATH: 69.3%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude 3 Opus and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Claude 3 Opus supports 200K tokens and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude 3 Opus and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Key differences include licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude 3 Opus and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Claude 3 Opus is developed by Anthropic and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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