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Mistral NeMo Instruct vs Phi 4 Mini

Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini are closely matched at -5.2 and -4.5 on the LLM Stats Score.

Mistral AI · Microsoft · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -5.2 and -4.5.

In the 5 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral NeMo 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 Mistral NeMo Instruct

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 5 exact shared results

Choose Phi 4 Mini

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mistral NeMo Instruct
Mistral AI
Phi 4 Mini
Microsoft
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
-5.2
#379
-4.5
#373
Reasoning
-5.4
#372
-4.6
#366
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
3 of 5
2 of 5
Input price
$0.02 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.03 / M
— / M
Context window
131,072
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Phi 4 Mini
Finance
-8.1#233
1.1#203
Legal
-8.1#214
1.1#188
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

8 reported for Mistral NeMo Instruct · 17 for Phi 4 Mini

5 shared

Mistral NeMo Instruct outperforms in 3 benchmarks (HellaSwag, MMLU, Winogrande), while Phi 4 Mini is better at 2 benchmarks (OpenBookQA, TruthfulQA).

Mistral NeMo Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Sat Oct 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

8.2B diff

Mistral NeMo Instruct has 8.2B more parameters than Phi 4 Mini, making it 212.5% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral NeMo Instruct
12.0Bparameters
Microsoft
Phi 4 Mini
3.8Bparameters
12.0B
Mistral NeMo Instruct
3.8B
Phi 4 Mini

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral NeMo Instruct specifies input context (131,072 tokens). Only Mistral NeMo Instruct specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral NeMo Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Microsoft
Phi 4 Mini
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sat Oct 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mistral NeMo Instruct is licensed under Apache 2.0, while Phi 4 Mini uses MIT.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Mistral NeMo Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Phi 4 Mini

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral NeMo Instruct was released on 2024-07-18, while Phi 4 Mini was released on 2025-02-01.

Phi 4 Mini is 7 months newer than Mistral NeMo Instruct.

Mistral NeMo Instruct

Jul 18, 2024

2.3 years ago

Phi 4 Mini

Feb 1, 2025

1.7 years ago

6mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Phi 4 Mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while Mistral NeMo Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Phi 4 Mini's training data extends to 2024-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mistral NeMo Instruct's cutoff date.

Mistral NeMo Instruct

—

Phi 4 Mini

Jun 2024

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mistral NeMo Instruct
✓ Preferred
Phi 4 Mini
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral NeMo Instruct vs Phi 4 Mini.

Which is better, Mistral NeMo Instruct or Phi 4 Mini?

Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at -5.2 and -4.5. Mistral NeMo Instruct is made by Mistral AI and Phi 4 Mini is made by Microsoft. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mistral NeMo Instruct compare to Phi 4 Mini in benchmarks?

Mistral NeMo Instruct scores HellaSwag: 83.5%, Winogrande: 76.8%, TriviaQA: 73.8%, CommonSenseQA: 70.4%, MMLU: 68.0%. Phi 4 Mini scores GSM8k: 88.6%, ARC-C: 83.7%, BoolQ: 81.2%, OpenBookQA: 79.2%, PIQA: 77.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini?

Mistral NeMo Instruct supports 131K tokens and Phi 4 Mini 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 Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-5.2 vs -4.5), licensing (Apache 2.0 vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mistral NeMo Instruct and Phi 4 Mini?

Mistral NeMo Instruct is developed by Mistral AI and Phi 4 Mini is developed by Microsoft.

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