Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite scores 15.2 points higher (22.2 vs 7.0) but costs 3.0× as much to run the benchmark ($366 vs $122; both mid-range class). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when you need intelligence above 7.0, and Mistral Small 3.2 when 7.0 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.2 | 7.0 | −68.5% Mistral Small 3.2 is 68.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $365.63 | $121.78 | −66.7% Mistral Small 3.2 is 66.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 8.60s | 12.50s | +45.3% Mistral Small 3.2 is 45.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 68.5% less intelligence, 66.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.3% 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 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteMistral Small 3.2Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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