Gemma 3 27B IT vs Mistral Small 3 vs Phi-4-multimodal-instruct

Phi-4-multimodal-instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 72/100 against Gemma 3 27B IT (62) and Mistral Small 3 (50). It leads on inputs & features. Mistral Small 3 wins on price. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.08 output per million tokens (median across 6 API providers). Phi-4-multimodal-instruct costs $0.07 input / $0.11 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider); Gemma 3 27B IT costs $0.11 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (median across 16 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.058 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3 versus $0.08 for Phi-4-multimodal-instruct (1.4× as much) and $0.157 for Gemma 3 27B IT (2.7× as much).

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Gemma 3 27B IT has an ECI of 129.9, Mistral Small 3 has not been scored yet and Phi-4-multimodal-instruct has not been scored yet.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 3 27B IT, Mistral Small 3 and Phi-4-multimodal-instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Mistral Small 3 does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Gemma 3 27B IT and Phi-4-multimodal-instruct have the largest context windows (131,072 and 131,072 tokens), against 32,768 for Mistral Small 3. Maximum output per response: Gemma 3 27B IT up to 131,072, Mistral Small 3 up to 16,384, Phi-4-multimodal-instruct up to 131,072 tokens.

Gemma 3 27B IT accepts text and images; Mistral Small 3 accepts text; Phi-4-multimodal-instruct accepts text, images and audio. Phi-4-multimodal-instruct handles the widest range of inputs.

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

Gemma 3 27B IT is the newest, released Mar 12, 2025. Phi-4-multimodal-instruct came out Feb 26, 2025; Mistral Small 3 came out Jan 30, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Gemma 3 27B IT Aug 2024, Mistral Small 3 Oct 31, 2023, Phi-4-multimodal-instruct Jun 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.