Ministral 3 14B vs DeepSeek-R1

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Ministral 3 14B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 55 to 43. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Ministral 3 14B's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 70.5 against 47.5. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 70 to 43.

DeepSeek-R1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.55 input / $2.19 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 14B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. DeepSeek-R1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Ministral 3 14B is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Quick Verdict

Pick Ministral 3 14B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek-R1 only becomes the better choice if you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

48.4

DeepSeek-R1

44.5

48
Terminal-Bench 2.0
42
55
BrowseComp
49
44
OSWorld-Verified
44

Coding

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

33

DeepSeek-R1

21.5

58
HumanEval
36
37
SWE-bench Verified
17
31
LiveCodeBench
19
34
SWE-bench Pro
25

Multimodal & Grounded

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

70.5

DeepSeek-R1

47.5

70
MMMU-Pro
43
71
OfficeQA Pro
53

Reasoning

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

63.6

DeepSeek-R1

50.9

66
SimpleQA
42
64
MuSR
40
74
BBH
66
60
LongBench v2
58
60
MRCRv2
57

Knowledge

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

50.1

DeepSeek-R1

37.9

69
MMLU
44
68
GPQA
43
66
SuperGPQA
41
64
OpenBookQA
39
67
MMLU-Pro
52
5
HLE
14
60
FrontierScience
44

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

80

DeepSeek-R1

69

80
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

76.8

DeepSeek-R1

60.4

80
MGSM
61
75
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

Ministral 3 14B

Ministral 3 14B

69.7

DeepSeek-R1

52.5

68
AIME 2023
44
70
AIME 2024
46
72
AIME 2025
45
64
HMMT Feb 2023
40
66
HMMT Feb 2024
42
65
HMMT Feb 2025
41
67
BRUMO 2025
43
72
MATH-500
64

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B is ahead overall, 55 to 43. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 70 and 43.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 50.1 versus 37.9. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 33 versus 21.5. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 69.7 versus 52.5. Inside this category, AIME 2025 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 63.6 versus 50.9. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 48.4 versus 44.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 70.5 versus 47.5. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 80 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Ministral 3 14B or DeepSeek-R1?

Ministral 3 14B has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 76.8 versus 60.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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