Gemma 3 12B IT vs Mistral Nemo vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

Gemma 3 12B IT is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Qwen2.5 7B Instruct (50) and Mistral Nemo (47). It leads on capability and inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.10 output per million tokens (median across 3 API providers). Gemma 3 12B IT costs $0.05 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 12 API providers); Mistral Nemo costs $0.12 input / $0.13 output per million tokens (median across 12 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.063 per million tokens for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct versus $0.075 for Gemma 3 12B IT (1.2× as much) and $0.123 for Mistral Nemo (2× as much).

Gemma 3 12B IT scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Gemma 3 12B IT 123.5 (#151 of 165), Mistral Nemo 118.6 (#157 of 165) and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct 118.5 (#159 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (116.9–128.4 vs 111.6–121.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Gemma 3 12B IT 39.5%, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct 35.5%, Mistral Nemo 29.9%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 3 12B IT, Mistral Nemo and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Gemma 3 12B IT leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Gemma 3 12B IT and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct have the largest context windows (131,072 and 131,072 tokens), against 128,000 for Mistral Nemo. Maximum output per response: Gemma 3 12B IT up to 131,072, Mistral Nemo up to 128,000, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct up to 8,192 tokens.

Gemma 3 12B IT accepts text and images; Mistral Nemo accepts text; Qwen2.5 7B Instruct accepts text. Gemma 3 12B IT handles the widest range of inputs.

Yes, all three publish their weights (Apache 2.0), so you can self-host them.

Gemma 3 12B IT is the newest, released Mar 12, 2025. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct came out Sep 19, 2024; Mistral Nemo came out Jul 18, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Gemma 3 12B IT Aug 2024, Mistral Nemo Jul 2024.

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 Nov 2, 2026.