Llama 3.2 3B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base are closely matched at -6.1 and -0.3 on the LLM Stats Score.
Meta · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -6.1 and -0.3.
In the 5 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 3 24B Base wins 4; 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 Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
- you want predictable pricing at $0.01/M input and $0.02/M output
Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Base
- your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 5 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
15 reported for Llama 3.2 3B Instruct · 9 for Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MATH), while Mistral Small 3 24B Base is better at 4 benchmarks (ARC-C, GPQA, GSM8k, MMLU).
Mistral Small 3 24B Base significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Mistral Small 3 24B Base has 20.4B more parameters than Llama 3.2 3B Instruct, making it 635.2% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Llama 3.2 3B Instruct specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Llama 3.2 3B Instruct specifies output context (128,000 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Mistral Small 3 24B Base supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.2 3B Instruct does not.
Mistral Small 3 24B Base can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
License
Usage and distribution terms
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.2 Community License, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Llama 3.2 Community License
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct was released on 2024-09-25, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base was released on 2025-01-30.
Mistral Small 3 24B Base is 4 months newer than Llama 3.2 3B Instruct.
Sep 25, 2024
2.0 years ago
Jan 30, 2025
1.6 years ago
4mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Mistral Small 3 24B Base has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Llama 3.2 3B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Mistral Small 3 24B Base's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Llama 3.2 3B Instruct's cutoff date.
—
Oct 2023
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Llama 3.2 3B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Llama 3.2 3B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base.