Mistral Large 2 vs Ministral 3 8B

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

Mistral Large 2 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 59 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Mistral Large 2's sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 67.5 against 36.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 68 to 27.

Quick Verdict

Pick Mistral Large 2 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Agentic

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

52.2

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

51
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
57
BrowseComp
36
50
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

41.8

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

60
HumanEval
23
49
SWE-bench Verified
16
38
LiveCodeBench
15
44
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

61

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

56
MMMU-Pro
27
67
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

67.5

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

66
SimpleQA
28
64
MuSR
26
82
BBH
63
66
LongBench v2
38
68
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

54.6

Ministral 3 8B

28

68
MMLU
28
68
GPQA
27
66
SuperGPQA
25
64
OpenBookQA
23
74
MMLU-Pro
52
12
HLE
3
65
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

83

Ministral 3 8B

69

83
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

79.1

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

81
MGSM
63
78
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Mistral Large 2

Mistral Large 2

73.8

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

68
AIME 2023
30
70
AIME 2024
32
69
AIME 2025
33
64
HMMT Feb 2023
26
66
HMMT Feb 2024
28
65
HMMT Feb 2025
27
67
BRUMO 2025
29
82
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 is ahead overall, 59 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 68 and 27.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 54.6 versus 28. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 41.8 versus 14.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 43.3. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 67.5 versus 36.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.2 versus 28.9. 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, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 61 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 83 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Mistral Large 2 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 2 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.1 versus 61.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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