Model Comparison

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Verdict: Llama 3.1 70B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct — which is better?

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (by Meta) 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.

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MMLU), while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU-Pro). Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Choose Llama 3.1 70B Instruct if…

  • you want predictable pricing at $0.20/M input and $0.20/M output

Choose Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 4 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2025

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

4 benchmarks

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MMLU), while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU-Pro).

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Wed Jul 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

46.0B diff

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct has 46.0B more parameters than Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct, making it 191.7% larger.

Meta
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
70.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
70.0B
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
24.0B
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Llama 3.1 70B Instruct specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Meta
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Wed Jul 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 70B Instruct does not.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.1 Community 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.

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Llama 3.1 Community License

Open weights

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct was released on 2025-03-17.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is 8 months newer than Llama 3.1 70B Instruct.

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.0 years ago

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Mar 17, 2025

1.3 years ago

7mo 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

Meta
Larger context window (128,000 tokens)
Higher MMLU score (83.6% vs 80.6%)
Mistral AI
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (46.0% vs 41.7%)
Higher HumanEval score (88.4% vs 80.5%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (66.8% vs 66.4%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.1 70B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Meta
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 70B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 70B Instruct or Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Llama 3.1 70B Instruct is made by Meta 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 Llama 3.1 70B Instruct compare to Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct scores GSM-8K (CoT): 95.1%, ARC-C: 94.8%, API-Bank: 90.0%, IFEval: 87.5%, Multilingual MGSM (CoT): 86.9%. 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 Llama 3.1 70B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct supports 128K 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 Llama 3.1 70B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Llama 3.1 Community License vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Llama 3.1 70B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Llama 3.1 70B Instruct is developed by Meta and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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