Model Comparison

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct vs Pixtral-12BWhich is better in 2026?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Verdict: Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct vs Pixtral-12B — which is better?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct (by Microsoft) and Pixtral-12B (by Mistral AI) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

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.

Choose Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks

Choose Pixtral-12B if…

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

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

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.

Sun Jul 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

47.6B diff

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct has 47.6B more parameters than Pixtral-12B, making it 383.9% larger.

Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
60.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Pixtral-12B
12.4Bparameters
60.0B
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
12.4B
Pixtral-12B

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).

Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Pixtral-12B
Input128,000 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Sun Jul 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

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

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Pixtral-12B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

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.

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

MIT

Open weights

Pixtral-12B

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.

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct

Aug 23, 2024

1.9 years ago

Pixtral-12B

Sep 17, 2024

1.9 years ago

3w newer

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→

Key Takeaways

Microsoft
Higher MATH score (59.5% vs 48.1%)
Higher MMLU score (78.9% vs 69.2%)
Mistral AI
Larger context window (128,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher HumanEval score (72.0% vs 70.7%)

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

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.

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
✓ Preferred
Pixtral-12B
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Microsoft
Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct
Mistral AI
Pixtral-12B

FAQ

Common questions about Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct vs Pixtral-12B.

Which is better, Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct or Pixtral-12B?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks. Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is made by Microsoft and Pixtral-12B is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct compare to Pixtral-12B in benchmarks?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct scores ARC-C: 91.0%, OpenBookQA: 89.6%, GSM8k: 88.7%, PIQA: 88.6%, RULER: 87.1%. Pixtral-12B scores DocVQA: 90.7%, ChartQA: 81.8%, VQAv2: 78.6%, MT-Bench: 76.8%, HumanEval: 72.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct supports an unknown number of tokens and Pixtral-12B supports 128K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B?

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

Who makes Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct and Pixtral-12B?

Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct is developed by Microsoft and Pixtral-12B is developed by Mistral AI.

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