LongCat 2.0 vs Ministral 3 3B
Which is better for the money: LongCat 2.0 by LongCat or Ministral 3 3B 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
LongCat 2.0 scores 14.3 points higher (19.1 vs 4.8) but costs 45× as much to run the benchmark ($545 vs $12.2; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick LongCat 2.0 when you need intelligence above 4.8, and Ministral 3 3B when 4.8 is enough.
| Metric | LongCat 2.0 | Ministral 3 3B | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 19.1 | 4.8 | −74.9% Ministral 3 3B is 74.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $544.74 | $12.23 | −97.8% Ministral 3 3B is 97.8% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.54s | 3.07s | −91.4% Ministral 3 3B is 91.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $2.95 | $0.10 / $0.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Ministral 3 3B vs LongCat 2.0: 74.9% less intelligence, 97.8% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 91.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- LongCat 2.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Ministral 3 3B is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
LongCat 2.0Ministral 3 3BToday'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/longcat-2-0/ministral-3-3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/longcat-2-0/ministral-3-3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill