Model Comparison

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Mistral Small 3 24B Base significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

5 benchmarks

Ministral 8B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MATH), while Mistral Small 3 24B Base is better at 4 benchmarks (AGIEval, ARC-C, MMLU, TriviaQA).

Mistral Small 3 24B Base significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Wed May 27 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

15.6B diff

Mistral Small 3 24B Base has 15.6B more parameters than Ministral 8B Instruct, making it 194.3% larger.

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
8.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
23.6Bparameters
8.0B
Ministral 8B Instruct
23.6B
Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Ministral 8B Instruct specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Ministral 8B Instruct specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Wed May 27 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Mistral Small 3 24B Base supports multimodal inputs, whereas Ministral 8B 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.

Ministral 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Ministral 8B Instruct is licensed under Mistral Research 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.

Ministral 8B Instruct

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Ministral 8B Instruct was released on 2024-10-16, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base was released on 2025-01-30.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base is 4 months newer than Ministral 8B Instruct.

Ministral 8B Instruct

Oct 16, 2024

1.6 years ago

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Jan 30, 2025

1.3 years ago

3mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Mistral Small 3 24B Base has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while Ministral 8B 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 Ministral 8B Instruct's cutoff date.

Ministral 8B Instruct

—

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Oct 2023

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Mistral AI
Larger context window (128,000 tokens)
Higher MATH score (54.5% vs 46.0%)
Mistral AI
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher AGIEval score (65.8% vs 48.3%)
Higher ARC-C score (91.3% vs 71.9%)
Higher MMLU score (80.7% vs 65.0%)
Higher TriviaQA score (80.3% vs 65.5%)

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base

FAQ

Common questions about Ministral 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base.

Which is better, Ministral 8B Instruct or Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Mistral Small 3 24B Base significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Ministral 8B Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Mistral Small 3 24B Base is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Ministral 8B Instruct compare to Mistral Small 3 24B Base in benchmarks?

Ministral 8B Instruct scores MT-Bench: 83.0%, Winogrande: 75.3%, ARC-C: 71.9%, Arena Hard: 70.9%, MBPP pass@1: 70.0%. Mistral Small 3 24B Base scores ARC-C: 91.3%, GSM8k: 80.7%, MMLU: 80.7%, TriviaQA: 80.3%, MBPP: 69.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Ministral 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Ministral 8B Instruct supports 128K tokens and Mistral Small 3 24B Base 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 Ministral 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

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