Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 51/100 against Mistral Small 3 (39). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Mistral Small 3 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Mistral Small 3 has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Mistral Small 3 is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.08 output per million tokens (median across 6 API providers). Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct costs $0.17 input / $0.59 output per million tokens (median across 13 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 $0.275 for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (4.8× as much).

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 29.8% and Mistral Small 3 27.0%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 51.8%, Mistral Small 3 47.3%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 7.8%, Mistral Small 3 6.7%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Note that Mistral Small 3 does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct has the largest context window at 10,000,000 tokens, against 32,768 for Mistral Small 3. Maximum output per response: Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct up to 16,384, Mistral Small 3 up to 16,384 tokens.

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct accepts text and images; Mistral Small 3 accepts text. Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct handles the widest range of inputs.

Yes, both publish their weights, so you can self-host them.

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is the newest, released Apr 5, 2025. Mistral Small 3 came out Jan 30, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct Aug 2024, Mistral Small 3 Oct 31, 2023.

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.