Model Comparison

Grok-4 Heavy vs Mistral Small 3 24B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Grok-4 Heavy significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Grok-4 Heavy vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct — which is better?

Grok-4 Heavy (by xAI) and Mistral Small 3 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.

Grok-4 Heavy outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Grok-4 Heavy significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Grok-4 Heavy if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Grok-4 Heavy outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Grok-4 Heavy significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Jul 21 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

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-4 Heavy
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Input32,000 tokens
Output32,000 tokens
Tue Jul 21 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Grok-4 Heavy supports multimodal inputs, whereas Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct does not.

Grok-4 Heavy can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Grok-4 Heavy

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok-4 Heavy 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-4 Heavy

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct was released on 2025-01-30, while Grok-4 Heavy's release date is not specified.

We can confirm Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct's release timeline, but cannot make a direct age comparison without Grok-4 Heavy's release date.

Grok-4 Heavy

—

Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Jan 30, 2025

1.5 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok-4 Heavy has a knowledge cutoff of 2024-12-31, while Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct has a cutoff of 2023-10-01.

Grok-4 Heavy has more recent training data (up to 2024-12-31), making it potentially better informed about events through that date compared to Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct (2023-10-01).

Grok-4 Heavy

Dec 2024

1.2 yr newer
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

xAI
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (88.4% vs 45.3%)
Mistral AI
Larger context window (32,000 tokens)
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok-4 Heavy and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok-4 Heavy
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
xAI
Grok-4 Heavy
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Grok-4 Heavy vs Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Grok-4 Heavy or Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-4 Heavy significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Grok-4 Heavy 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-4 Heavy compare to Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Grok-4 Heavy scores AIME 2025: 100.0%, HMMT25: 96.7%, GPQA: 88.4%, LiveCodeBench: 79.4%, USAMO25: 61.9%. 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-4 Heavy and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-4 Heavy 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-4 Heavy 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-4 Heavy and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct?

Grok-4 Heavy is developed by xAI and Mistral Small 3 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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