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Codestral-22B vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct are closely matched at 0.0 and 4.2 on the LLM Stats Score.

Mistral AI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 0.0 and 4.2.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Codestral-22B

  • you are already invested in the Mistral AI ecosystem

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Codestral-22B
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
0.0
#332
4.2
#308
Reasoning
-0.1
#324
3.7
#304
Coding
2.5
#231
4.7
#211
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 1
1 of 1
Input price
— / M
$0.05 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.08 / M
Context window
—
32,768

Individual benchmarks

7 reported for Codestral-22B · 8 for Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

1 shared

Codestral-22B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (HumanEval).

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Wed Sep 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

1.8B diff

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has 1.8B more parameters than Codestral-22B, making it 8.1% larger.

Mistral AI
Codestral-22B
22.2Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
22.2B
Codestral-22B
24.0B
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies input context (32,768 tokens). Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Mistral AI
Codestral-22B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Input32,768 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Wed Sep 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Codestral-22B is licensed under MNPL-0.1, while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

Codestral-22B

MNPL-0.1

Open weights

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Codestral-22B was released on 2024-05-29, while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct was released on 2025-01-30.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is 8 months newer than Codestral-22B.

Codestral-22B

May 29, 2024

2.3 years ago

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Jan 30, 2025

1.6 years ago

8mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Codestral-22B's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Codestral-22B's cutoff date.

Codestral-22B

—

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Codestral-22B
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Codestral-22B vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Codestral-22B or Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 0.0 and 4.2. Codestral-22B is made by Mistral AI and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Codestral-22B compare to Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Codestral-22B scores HumanEvalFIM-Average: 91.6%, HumanEval: 81.1%, MBPP: 78.2%, Spider: 63.5%, HumanEval-Average: 61.5%. Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct scores Arena Hard: 87.6%, HumanEval: 84.8%, MT-Bench: 83.5%, IFEval: 82.9%, MATH: 70.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Codestral-22B supports an unknown number of tokens and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct supports 33K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Codestral-22B and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (0.0 vs 4.2), licensing (MNPL-0.1 vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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