The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct are closely matched at 5.2 and 4.2 on the LLM Stats Score.

Meta · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 5.2 and 4.2.

In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Llama 3.2 90B Instruct wins 3; 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 90B Instruct

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 4 exact shared results

Choose Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Mar 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Core performance indexes
5.2
#297
4.2
#302
6.7
#285
4.2
#296
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
3 of 4
1 of 4
Input price
$0.35 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.40 / M
— / M
Context window
128,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Llama 3.2 90B Instruct
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
11.6#238
7.9#261
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

13 reported for Llama 3.2 90B Instruct · 9 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

4 shared

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU, MMMU), while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MATH).

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

66.0B diff

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct has 66.0B more parameters than Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct, making it 275.0% larger.

Meta
Llama 3.2 90B Instruct
90.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
24.0Bparameters
90.0B
Llama 3.2 90B Instruct
24.0B
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Llama 3.2 90B Instruct specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Llama 3.2 90B Instruct specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Meta
Llama 3.2 90B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.2, 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 3.2 90B Instruct

Llama 3.2

Open weights

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct was released on 2024-09-25, while Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct was released on 2025-03-17.

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is 6 months newer than Llama 3.2 90B Instruct.

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct

Sep 25, 2024

2.0 years ago

Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct

Mar 17, 2025

1.5 years ago

5mo 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

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.2 90B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Llama 3.2 90B Instruct or Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 5.2 and 4.2. Llama 3.2 90B 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 capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Llama 3.2 90B Instruct compare to Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct scores AI2D: 92.3%, DocVQA: 90.1%, MGSM: 86.9%, MMLU: 86.0%, ChartQA: 85.5%. 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 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 90B 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 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (5.2 vs 4.2), licensing (Llama 3.2 vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Llama 3.2 90B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 90B Instruct is developed by Meta and Mistral Small 3.1 24B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.