DeepSeek V3.1 vs Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

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

DeepSeek V3.1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 35 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

DeepSeek V3.1's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 39.5 against 30.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 35 to 25. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) does hit back in agentic, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while DeepSeek V3.1 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 DeepSeek V3.1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if agentic is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

DeepSeek V3.1

32.9

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

34

29
Terminal-Bench 2.0
33
39
BrowseComp
37
33
OSWorld-Verified
33

Coding

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

14.8

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

7.2

25
HumanEval
16
13
SWE-bench Verified
9
15
LiveCodeBench
8
15
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

39.5

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

30.4

35
MMMU-Pro
25
45
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

40.7

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

35.3

31
SimpleQA
26
29
MuSR
26
61
BBH
63
46
LongBench v2
37
48
MRCRv2
40

Knowledge

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

30.5

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

25.2

33
MMLU
25
32
GPQA
24
30
SuperGPQA
22
28
OpenBookQA
20
53
MMLU-Pro
49
2
HLE
1
37
FrontierScience
29

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

DeepSeek V3.1

67

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

68

67
IFEval
68

Multilingual

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

60.8

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

59.7

64
MGSM
61
59
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.1

DeepSeek V3.1

44.2

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

40.9

33
AIME 2023
27
35
AIME 2024
29
34
AIME 2025
28
29
HMMT Feb 2023
23
31
HMMT Feb 2024
25
30
HMMT Feb 2025
24
32
BRUMO 2025
26
59
MATH-500
59

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 is ahead overall, 35 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 35 and 25.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 30.5 versus 25.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 14.8 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 44.2 versus 40.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 40.7 versus 35.3. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 34 versus 32.9. 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, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 39.5 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 68 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, DeepSeek V3.1 or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

DeepSeek V3.1 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.8 versus 59.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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