Mistral NeMo Instruct vs Phi-3.5-mini-instruct
Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi-3.5-mini-instruct are closely matched at -4.8 and -3.8 on the LLM Stats Score. Mistral NeMo Instruct is 4.6x cheaper per token.
Mistral AI · Microsoft · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi-3.5-mini-instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -4.8 and -3.8.
In the 5 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Mistral NeMo Instruct is roughly 4.6x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Mistral NeMo Instruct also accepts a larger context window (131,072 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Mistral NeMo Instruct
- cost matters — it's about 4.6x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 131,072 token context window
Choose Phi-3.5-mini-instruct
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 5 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2024
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
8 reported for Mistral NeMo Instruct · 31 for Phi-3.5-mini-instruct
Mistral NeMo Instruct outperforms in 2 benchmarks (HellaSwag, Winogrande), while Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (MMLU, OpenBookQA, TruthfulQA).
Phi-3.5-mini-instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Mistral NeMo Instruct ($0.02/1M tokens) is 5.3x cheaper than Phi-3.5-mini-instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, Mistral NeMo Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens) is 3.3x cheaper than Phi-3.5-mini-instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is more expensive than Mistral NeMo Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Mistral NeMo Instruct has 8.2B more parameters than Phi-3.5-mini-instruct, making it 215.8% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Mistral NeMo Instruct accepts 131,072 input tokens compared to Phi-3.5-mini-instruct's 128,000 tokens. Mistral NeMo Instruct can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mistral NeMo Instruct is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Phi-3.5-mini-instruct uses MIT.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Apache 2.0
Open weights
MIT
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mistral NeMo Instruct was released on 2024-07-18, while Phi-3.5-mini-instruct was released on 2024-08-23.
Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is 1 month newer than Mistral NeMo Instruct.
Jul 18, 2024
2.3 years ago
Aug 23, 2024
2.2 years ago
1mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Mistral NeMo Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Google, Mistral AI. Phi-3.5-mini-instruct is available from Azure.
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Phi-3.5-mini-instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi-3.5-mini-instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mistral NeMo Instruct vs Phi-3.5-mini-instruct.