Mistral Large 3 vs Ministral 3 8B

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

Mistral Large 3 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 61 to 32. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Mistral Large 3's sharpest advantage is in multimodal & grounded, where it averages 75.5 against 32.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMMU-Pro, 75 to 27.

Mistral Large 3 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $2.00 input / $6.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Ministral 3 8B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone.

Quick Verdict

Pick Mistral Large 3 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 8B only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

52.5

Ministral 3 8B

28.9

52
Terminal-Bench 2.0
26
58
BrowseComp
36
49
OSWorld-Verified
27

Coding

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

41

Ministral 3 8B

14.2

68
HumanEval
23
45
SWE-bench Verified
16
39
LiveCodeBench
15
42
SWE-bench Pro
13

Multimodal & Grounded

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

75.5

Ministral 3 8B

32.4

75
MMMU-Pro
27
76
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

70.6

Ministral 3 8B

36.1

73
SimpleQA
28
71
MuSR
26
81
BBH
63
67
LongBench v2
38
67
MRCRv2
41

Knowledge

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

57.1

Ministral 3 8B

28

76
MMLU
28
75
GPQA
27
73
SuperGPQA
25
71
OpenBookQA
23
74
MMLU-Pro
52
12
HLE
3
67
FrontierScience
32

Instruction Following

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

83

Ministral 3 8B

69

83
IFEval
69

Multilingual

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

78.8

Ministral 3 8B

61.7

82
MGSM
63
77
MMLU-ProX
61

Mathematics

Mistral Large 3

Mistral Large 3

77.3

Ministral 3 8B

43.3

76
AIME 2023
30
78
AIME 2024
32
77
AIME 2025
33
72
HMMT Feb 2023
26
74
HMMT Feb 2024
28
73
HMMT Feb 2025
27
75
BRUMO 2025
29
80
MATH-500
60

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Mistral Large 3 is ahead overall, 61 to 32. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMMU-Pro, where the scores are 75 and 27.

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

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 57.1 versus 28. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 41 versus 14.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

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

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 77.3 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 3 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 70.6 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 3 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 52.5 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 3 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 75.5 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 3 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 3 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 3 or Ministral 3 8B?

Mistral Large 3 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 78.8 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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