Llama 4 Maverick vs Ministral 3 8B
Which is better for the money: Llama 4 Maverick by Meta or Ministral 3 8B by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Llama 4 Maverick scores 3.8 points higher (9.3 vs 5.5) but costs 1.6× as much to run the benchmark ($44.0 vs $27.5; both budget class). Pick Llama 4 Maverick when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Ministral 3 8B.
| Metric | Llama 4 Maverick | Ministral 3 8B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.3 | 5.5 | −40.9% Ministral 3 8B is 40.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $43.98 | $27.47 | −37.5% Ministral 3 8B is 37.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 10.42s | 5.26s | −49.5% Ministral 3 8B is 49.5% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $0.92 | $0.15 / $0.15 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 8B vs Llama 4 Maverick: 40.9% less intelligence, 37.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 49.5% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Llama 4 Maverick is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
- Ministral 3 8B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
Llama 4 MaverickMinistral 3 8BToday'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/llama-4-maverick/ministral-3-8b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-maverick/ministral-3-8b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill