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Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) vs Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct are closely matched at 2.2 and 8.4 on the LLM Stats Score.

Mistral AI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 2.2 and 8.4.

In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct wins 2; 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 Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)

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

Choose Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 3 exact shared results

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
2.2
#324
8.4
#286
Reasoning
2.7
#313
7.9
#287
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 3
2 of 3
Input price
— / M
$0.07 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.20 / M
Context window
—
128,000

Individual benchmarks

4 reported for Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) · 15 for Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

3 shared

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MATH), while Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (Arena Hard, Wild Bench).

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Mon Oct 05 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

20.6B diff

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct has 20.6B more parameters than Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512), making it 686.7% larger.

Mistral AI
Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)
3.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
23.6Bparameters
3.0B
Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)
23.6B
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Mistral AI
Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mon Oct 05 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

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

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.

Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) was released on 2025-12-04, while Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct was released on 2025-06-20.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) is 6 months newer than Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)

Dec 4, 2025

10 months ago

5mo newer
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Jun 20, 2025

1.3 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)'s cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)'s cutoff date.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)

—

Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct

Oct 2023

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512)
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) vs Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct.

Which is better, Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) or Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct?

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 2.2 and 8.4. Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) is made by Mistral AI and Mistral Small 3.2 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 Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) compare to Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct in benchmarks?

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) scores MATH: 83.0%, Wild Bench: 56.8%, Arena Hard: 30.5%, MM-MT-Bench: 7.8%. Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct scores DocVQA: 94.9%, AI2D: 92.9%, HumanEval Plus: 92.9%, ChartQA: 87.4%, IF: 84.8%.

What are the context window sizes for Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct?

Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) supports an unknown number of tokens and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct supports 128K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Ministral 3 (3B Instruct 2512) and Mistral Small 3.2 24B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (2.2 vs 8.4). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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