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Grok-2 mini vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Grok-2 mini significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

xAI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok-2 mini outperforms in 4 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Grok-2 mini significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok-2 mini

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 4 of 4 shared benchmarks

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok-2 mini
xAI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Mistral AI
Benchmark wins
4 of 4
0 of 4
Input price
— / M
$0.07 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.14 / M
Context window
—
32,000
Released
Aug 2024
Jan 2025
License
Proprietary
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

4 benchmarks

Grok-2 mini outperforms in 4 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Grok-2 mini significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies input context (32,000 tokens). Only Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct specifies output context (32,000 tokens).

xAI
Grok-2 mini
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Input32,000 tokens
Output32,000 tokens
Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Grok-2 mini supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct does not.

Grok-2 mini can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Grok-2 mini

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok-2 mini is licensed under a proprietary license, 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.

Grok-2 mini

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok-2 mini was released on 2024-08-13, while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct was released on 2025-01-30.

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is 6 months newer than Grok-2 mini.

Grok-2 mini

Aug 13, 2024

2.0 years ago

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Jan 30, 2025

1.6 years ago

5mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Grok-2 mini'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 Grok-2 mini's cutoff date.

Grok-2 mini

—

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 Grok-2 mini and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok-2 mini
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok-2 mini vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Grok-2 mini or Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-2 mini significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Grok-2 mini is made by xAI and Mistral Small 3 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 Grok-2 mini compare to Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Grok-2 mini scores DocVQA: 93.2%, MMLU: 86.2%, HumanEval: 85.7%, MATH: 73.0%, MMLU-Pro: 72.0%. 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 Grok-2 mini and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-2 mini supports an unknown number of tokens and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct supports 32K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Grok-2 mini and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok-2 mini and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-2 mini is developed by xAI and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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