Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs GPT-5 Nano vs Mistral Small 3.2
Too close to call on our weighted score (Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71, GPT-5 Nano 70, Mistral Small 3.2 60). The right pick depends on what you value most.
GoogleGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite
71/100- ECI133.9
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1.05M
OpenAIGPT-5 Nano
70/100- ECI139.4
- Price$0.05 / $0.40
- Context400K
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.2
60/100- ECI131.7
- Price$0.10 / $0.30
- Context128K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71/100, GPT-5 Nano 70/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: GPT-5 Nano for raw capability and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityGPT-5 NanoCapabilities Index (ECI): GPT-5 Nano 139.4 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 · Mistral Small 3.2 131.7
- Lowest priceGPT-5 NanoGPT-5 Nano $0.138 · Mistral Small 3.2 $0.15 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite $0.175 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 1,048,576 · GPT-5 Nano 400,000 · Mistral Small 3.2 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · GPT-5 Nano: Text, Images · Mistral Small 3.2: Text, Images
- Self-hostingMistral Small 3.2Publishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite | GPT-5 Nano | Mistral Small 3.2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 58 | 65 | 55 |
| Price | 25% | 86 | 91 | 89 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 100 | 70 | 50 |
| Context window | 10% | 61 | 44 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 71/100 | 70/100 | 60/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogle | GPT-5 NanoOpenAI | Mistral Small 3.2Mistral AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 133.9 | 139.4 (best) | 131.7 |
| ECI rank | #118 of 148 | #102 of 148 (best) | #123 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 69.4% (best) | 49.1% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | 20.0% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 81.1% (best) | 30.3% |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | 11.7% | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.10 | $0.05 (best) | $0.10 |
| Output | $0.40 | $0.40 | $0.30 (best) |
| Cached input | $0.01 | $0.005 (best) | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.175 | $0.138 (best) | $0.15 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Google API | Official OpenAI API | Official Mistral API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 1,048,576 tokens (best) | 400,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens | 128,000 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | Yes | No | No |
| Audio | Yes | No | No |
| Video | Yes | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yesminimal · low · medium · high | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | gemini-2.5-flash-lite | gpt-5-nano | mistral-small-2506 |
| API providers | 20 | 21 (best) | 6 |
| Released | Jun 17, 2025 | Aug 7, 2025 | Jun 20, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jan 2025 | May 30, 2024 | Mar 2025 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite$1.80
- GPT-5 Nano$1.30
- Mistral Small 3.2$1.60
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, GPT-5 Nano or Mistral Small 3.2?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 71/100, GPT-5 Nano 70/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: GPT-5 Nano for raw capability and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, GPT-5 Nano or Mistral Small 3.2?
GPT-5 Nano is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Mistral Small 3.2 costs $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price); Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Google API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.138 per million tokens for GPT-5 Nano versus $0.15 for Mistral Small 3.2 (1.1× as much) and $0.175 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (1.3× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
GPT-5 Nano scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): GPT-5 Nano 139.4 (#102 of 148), Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 (#118 of 148) and Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 (#123 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (134.9–141.7 vs 129.8–136.3), so treat the gap as small.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite, GPT-5 Nano and Mistral Small 3.2 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, GPT-5 Nano leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 400,000 for GPT-5 Nano and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.2. Maximum output per response: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite up to 65,536, GPT-5 Nano up to 128,000, Mistral Small 3.2 up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; GPT-5 Nano accepts text and images; Mistral Small 3.2 accepts text and images. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Mistral Small 3.2 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and GPT-5 Nano is proprietary.
Which is newer?
GPT-5 Nano is the newest, released Aug 7, 2025. Mistral Small 3.2 came out Jun 20, 2025; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite came out Jun 17, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Jan 2025, GPT-5 Nano May 30, 2024, Mistral Small 3.2 Mar 2025.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 136.2
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs GPT OSS 20BOpenAI · ECI 137.8
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs DeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek · ECI 135.9
- GPT-5 Nano vs Qwen3.5 9BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 139.5
- GPT-5 Nano vs DeepSeek-V3.1DeepSeek · ECI 139.9
- Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 136.2
