Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google or Mistral Small 3.1 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 15.1 points higher (22.2 vs 7.1) but costs 13× as much to run the benchmark ($366 vs $27.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.2 | 7.1 | −68.0% Mistral Small 3.1 is 68.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $365.63 | $27.82 | −92.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 92.4% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.51s | 11.25s | +18.3% Mistral Small 3.1 is 18.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 68.0% less intelligence, 92.4% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 18.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteMistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill