Magistral Small 1.2 vs Mistral Medium 3 vs Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct comes out ahead, 58 to 53 and 53 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
Mistral AIMagistral Small 1.2
53/100- ECI131.4
- Price$0.50 / $1.50
- Context131K
- Mistral AI
Mistral Medium 3
53/100- ECI134.1
- Price$0.40 / $2.00
- Context131K
- Our pick
MetaLlama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct
58/100- ECI132.2
- Price$0.321 / $0.91
- Context1M
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct is our pick
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 58/100 against Magistral Small 1.2 (53) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on price and context window. Magistral Small 1.2 wins on inputs & features. Mistral Medium 3 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityMistral Medium 3Capabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Medium 3 134.1 · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 132.2 · Magistral Small 1.2 131.4
- Lowest priceLlama 4 Maverick 17B InstructLlama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct $0.468 · Magistral Small 1.2 $0.75 · Mistral Medium 3 $0.80 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextLlama 4 Maverick 17B InstructLlama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 1,000,000 · Magistral Small 1.2 131,072 · Mistral Medium 3 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsMagistral Small 1.2: Text, Images · Mistral Medium 3: Text, Images · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct: Text, Images
- Self-hostingMagistral Small 1.2 and Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Magistral Small 1.2 | Mistral Medium 3 | Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 55 | 58 | 56 |
| Price | 25% | 56 | 54 | 66 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 60 | 50 | 50 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 60 |
| Overall | 100% | 53/100 | 53/100 | 58/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Magistral Small 1.2Mistral AI | Mistral Medium 3Mistral AI | Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructMeta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 131.4 | 134.1 (best) | 132.2 |
| ECI rank | #124 of 148 | #117 of 148 (best) | #122 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 47.6% | 59.5% | 67.0% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 28.1% | 32.2% (best) | 20.6% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.50 | $0.40 | $0.321 (best) |
| Output | $1.50 | $2.00 | $0.91 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.75 | $0.80 | $0.468 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 1 providers | Official Mistral API | Median of 6 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 131,072 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 131,072 tokens (best) | 131,072 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | OpenApache 2.0 | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | — | mistral-medium-2505 | — |
| API providers | 1 | 5 | 6 (best) |
| Released | Sep 18, 2025 | May 7, 2025 | Apr 5, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | May 2025 | Aug 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Magistral Small 1.2$8.00
- Mistral Medium 3$8.00
- Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct$5.03
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Magistral Small 1.2, Mistral Medium 3 or Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct?
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 58/100 against Magistral Small 1.2 (53) and Mistral Medium 3 (53). It leads on price and context window. Magistral Small 1.2 wins on inputs & features. Mistral Medium 3 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Magistral Small 1.2, Mistral Medium 3 or Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct?
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct is cheaper at $0.321 input / $0.91 output per million tokens (median across 6 API providers). Magistral Small 1.2 costs $0.50 input / $1.50 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider); Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40 input / $2.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.468 per million tokens for Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct versus $0.75 for Magistral Small 1.2 (1.6× as much) and $0.80 for Mistral Medium 3 (1.7× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Mistral Medium 3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Medium 3 134.1 (#117 of 148), Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 132.2 (#122 of 148) and Magistral Small 1.2 131.4 (#124 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (130.5–135.6 vs 128.0–134.1), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 67.0%, Mistral Medium 3 59.5%, Magistral Small 1.2 47.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Mistral Medium 3 32.2%, Magistral Small 1.2 28.1%, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 20.6%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Magistral Small 1.2, Mistral Medium 3 and Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Mistral Medium 3 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?
Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Magistral Small 1.2 and 131,072 for Mistral Medium 3. Maximum output per response: Magistral Small 1.2 up to 131,072, Mistral Medium 3 up to 131,072, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Magistral Small 1.2 accepts text and images; Mistral Medium 3 accepts text and images; Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct accepts text and images. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Magistral Small 1.2 and Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Mistral Medium 3 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Magistral Small 1.2 is the newest, released Sep 18, 2025. Mistral Medium 3 came out May 7, 2025; Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct came out Apr 5, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Medium 3 May 2025, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct Aug 2024.
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
- Magistral Small 1.2 vs GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI · ECI 135.0
- Magistral Small 1.2 vs DeepSeek-V3DeepSeek · ECI 132.3
- Magistral Small 1.2 vs QwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 137.6
- Mistral Medium 3 vs GPT-4.1 miniOpenAI · ECI 135.0
- Mistral Medium 3 vs QwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 137.6
- Mistral Medium 3 vs DeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek · ECI 135.9
