GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Ministral 8B Instruct
GPT-3.5 Turbo and Ministral 8B Instruct are closely matched at -9.2 and -4.5 on the LLM Stats Score. Ministral 8B Instruct is 7.5x cheaper per token.
OpenAI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
GPT-3.5 Turbo and Ministral 8B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -9.2 and -4.5.
In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, GPT-3.5 Turbo wins 2; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Ministral 8B Instruct is roughly 7.5x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Ministral 8B Instruct also accepts a larger context window (128,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose GPT-3.5 Turbo
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 3 exact shared results
Choose Ministral 8B Instruct
- cost matters — it's about 7.5x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 128,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
8 reported for GPT-3.5 Turbo · 11 for Ministral 8B Instruct
GPT-3.5 Turbo outperforms in 2 benchmarks (HumanEval, MMLU), while Ministral 8B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MATH).
GPT-3.5 Turbo shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, GPT-3.5 Turbo ($0.50/1M tokens) is 5.0x more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, GPT-3.5 Turbo ($1.50/1M tokens) is 15.0x more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).
In conclusion, GPT-3.5 Turbo is more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Ministral 8B Instruct accepts 128,000 input tokens compared to GPT-3.5 Turbo's 16,385 tokens. Ministral 8B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while GPT-3.5 Turbo is limited to 4,096 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
GPT-3.5 Turbo is licensed under a proprietary license, while Ministral 8B Instruct uses Mistral Research License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Mistral Research License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
GPT-3.5 Turbo was released on 2023-03-21, while Ministral 8B Instruct was released on 2024-10-16.
Ministral 8B Instruct is 19 months newer than GPT-3.5 Turbo.
Mar 21, 2023
3.5 years ago
Oct 16, 2024
1.9 years ago
1.6yr newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
GPT-3.5 Turbo has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2021-09-30, while Ministral 8B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm GPT-3.5 Turbo's training data extends to 2021-09-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Ministral 8B Instruct's cutoff date.
Sep 2021
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Provider Availability
GPT-3.5 Turbo is available from Azure, OpenAI. Ministral 8B Instruct is available from Mistral AI.
GPT-3.5 Turbo
Ministral 8B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against GPT-3.5 Turbo and Ministral 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about GPT-3.5 Turbo vs Ministral 8B Instruct.