The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Mistral Small vs Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Comparing Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Mistral AI · Microsoft · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Mistral Small

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2024

Choose Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

  • you are already invested in the Microsoft ecosystem

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mistral Small
Mistral AI
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Microsoft
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.20 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.60 / M
— / M
Context window
32,768
—
Released
Sep 2024
Aug 2024
License
Mistral Research License
MIT

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instructdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

38.0B diff

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct has 38.0B more parameters than Mistral Small, making it 172.7% larger.

Mistral AI
Mistral Small
22.0Bparameters
Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
60.0Bparameters
22.0B
Mistral Small
60.0B
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mistral Small specifies input context (32,768 tokens). Only Mistral Small specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Mistral AI
Mistral Small
Input32,768 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Tue Aug 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mistral Small is licensed under Mistral Research License, while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct uses MIT.

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

Mistral Small

Mistral Research License

Open weights

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mistral Small was released on 2024-09-17, while Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct was released on 2024-08-23.

Mistral Small is 1 month newer than Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct.

Mistral Small

Sep 17, 2024

1.9 years ago

3w newer
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Aug 23, 2024

2.0 years ago

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 Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mistral Small
✓ Preferred
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mistral Small vs Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct.

Which is better, Mistral Small or Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Mistral Small (Mistral AI) and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct (Microsoft) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Mistral Small compare to Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct in benchmarks?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct scores ARC-C: 91.0%, OpenBookQA: 89.6%, GSM8k: 88.7%, PIQA: 88.6%, RULER: 87.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Mistral Small supports 33K tokens and Phi-3.5-MoE-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 Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Key differences include licensing (Mistral Research License vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mistral Small and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct?

Mistral Small is developed by Mistral AI and Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is developed by Microsoft.

Related comparisons