Granite 4.2 3B vs Mistral Small 3.2
Which is better for the money: Granite 4.2 3B by IBM or Mistral Small 3.2 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Granite 4.2 3B
Mistral Small 3.2 vs Granite 4.2 3B: 23.1% less intelligence, 716.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.2% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | Granite 4.2 3B | Mistral Small 3.2 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.1 | 7.0 | −23.1% Mistral Small 3.2 is 23.1% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.91 | $121.78 | +716.8% Mistral Small 3.2 is 8.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 49.42s | 12.77s | −74.2% Mistral Small 3.2 is 74.2% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.03 / $0.12 | $0.07 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Granite 4.2 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Mistral Small 3.2 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Flash scores 37.90 for $110.
Granite 4.2 3BMistral Small 3.2Today'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/granite-4-2-3b/mistral-small-3-2 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/granite-4-2-3b/mistral-small-3-2?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill