LongCat 2.0 vs Mistral Small 3.1
Which is better for the money: LongCat 2.0 by LongCat 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
LongCat 2.0 scores 12.0 points higher (19.1 vs 7.1) but costs 20× as much to run the benchmark ($545 vs $27.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick LongCat 2.0 when you need intelligence above 7.1, and Mistral Small 3.1 when 7.1 is enough.
| Metric | LongCat 2.0 | Mistral Small 3.1 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 19.1 | 7.1 | −62.8% Mistral Small 3.1 is 62.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $544.74 | $27.82 | −94.9% Mistral Small 3.1 is 94.9% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 35.51s | 11.78s | −66.8% Mistral Small 3.1 is 66.8% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $2.95 | $0.08 / $0.14 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Mistral Small 3.1 vs LongCat 2.0: 62.8% less intelligence, 94.9% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 66.8% 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.
- Mistral Small 3.1 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
LongCat 2.0Mistral Small 3.1Today'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/longcat-2-0/mistral-small-3-1 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/longcat-2-0/mistral-small-3-1?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill