Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct vs Pixtral-12B
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B are closely matched at 1.9 and -1.6 on the LLM Stats Score.
Microsoft · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 1.9 and -1.6.
In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Phi-3.5-MoE-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 Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 2 of 3 exact shared results
Choose Pixtral-12B
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2024
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
31 reported for Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct · 12 for Pixtral-12B
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct outperforms in 2 benchmarks (MATH, MMLU), while Pixtral-12B is better at 1 benchmark (HumanEval).
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct has 47.6B more parameters than Pixtral-12B, making it 383.9% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Pixtral-12B specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Pixtral-12B specifies output context (8,192 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Pixtral-12B supports multimodal inputs, whereas Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct does not.
Pixtral-12B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Pixtral-12B
License
Usage and distribution terms
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is licensed under MIT, while Pixtral-12B uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct was released on 2024-08-23, while Pixtral-12B was released on 2024-09-17.
Pixtral-12B is 1 month newer than Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct.
Aug 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Sep 17, 2024
2.0 years ago
3w newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct vs Pixtral-12B.