GPT-6 Astra (Medium) vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: GPT-6 Astra (Medium) by OpenAI 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
GPT-6 Astra (Medium) scores 42.5 points higher (49.6 vs 7.1) but costs 87× as much to run the benchmark ($2434 vs $27.8; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick GPT-6 Astra (Medium) when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | GPT-6 Astra (Medium) | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 49.6 | 7.1 | −85.7% Mistral Small 3.1 is 85.7% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,434.12 | $27.82 | −98.9% Mistral Small 3.1 is 98.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.89s | 11.75s | −15.4% Mistral Small 3.1 is 15.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $10.0 / $50.0 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs GPT-6 Astra (Medium): 85.7% less intelligence, 98.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 15.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-6 Astra (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
GPT-6 Astra (Medium)Mistral Small 3.1Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra-medium/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-6-astra-medium/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill