ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Ministral 3B vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite comes out ahead, 71 to 49 and 46 on our weighted score, though Ministral 3B is 43% cheaper per token.

  1. Mistral AI

    Ministral 3B

    Released Oct 16, 2024

    49/100
    • ECI118.1
    • Price$0.10 / $0.10
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Ministral 3B
  2. Our pick

    Google

    Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

    Released Jun 17, 2025

    71/100
    • ECI133.9
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1.05M
    Full specs Remove Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite

  3. Meta

    Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

    Released Jul 23, 2024

    46/100
    • ECI116.6
    • Price$0.152 / $0.167
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
01 — Verdict

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is our pick

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Ministral 3B (49) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (46). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Ministral 3B wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteCapabilities Index (ECI): Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 · Ministral 3B 118.1 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6
  • Lowest priceMinistral 3BMinistral 3B $0.10 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.156 · 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 · Ministral 3B 128,000 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteMinistral 3B: Text · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: Text
  • Self-hostingMinistral 3B and Llama-3.1-8B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMinistral 3BGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%385836
Price25%978688
Inputs & features15%2510025
Context window10%246124
Overall100%49/10071/10046/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Ministral 3B vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationMinistral 3BMistral AIGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogleLlama-3.1-8B-InstructMeta
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)118.1133.9 (best)116.6
ECI rank#144 of 148#118 of 148 (best)#145 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions25.3%—27.0% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics——1.7%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10 (best)$0.10 (best)$0.152
Output$0.10 (best)$0.40$0.167
Cached input—$0.01—
Blended (3:1)$0.10 (best)$0.175$0.156
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 1 providersOfficial Google APIMedian of 9 providers
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens1,048,576 tokens (best)128,000 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens65,536 tokens (best)4,096 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoYesNo
VideoNoYesNo
ReasoningNoYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryOpen
API model ID—gemini-2.5-flash-lite—
API providers120 (best)9
ReleasedOct 16, 2024Jun 17, 2025Jul 23, 2024
Knowledge cutoffMar 2024Jan 2025Dec 2023
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Ministral 3B$1.20
  • Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite$1.80
  • Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$1.85
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Ministral 3B, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Ministral 3B (49) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (46). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Ministral 3B wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Ministral 3B, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Ministral 3B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.10 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct costs $0.152 input / $0.167 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers); 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 $0.10 per million tokens for Ministral 3B versus $0.156 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (1.6× as much) and $0.175 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (1.7× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 133.9 (#118 of 148), Ministral 3B 118.1 (#144 of 148) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6 (#145 of 148). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (129.8–136.3 vs 107.4–121.8), so the gap is a real one.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Ministral 3B, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 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 128,000 for Ministral 3B and 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Ministral 3B up to 8,192, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite up to 65,536, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Ministral 3B accepts text; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Ministral 3B and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the newest, released Jun 17, 2025. Ministral 3B came out Oct 16, 2024; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Ministral 3B Mar 2024, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Jan 2025, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct Dec 2023.

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.

05 — Keep comparing

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