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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Nova Micro

Nova Micro comes out ahead, 62 to 57 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Mistral AI

    Ministral 8B Instruct

    Released Oct 16, 2024

    57/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.15 / $0.15
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Ministral 8B Instruct
  2. Our pick

    Amazon

    Nova Micro

    Released Dec 3, 2024

    62/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.035 / $0.14
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Nova Micro

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Nova Micro is our pick

Nova Micro is the better all-round choice, scoring 62/100 against Ministral 8B Instruct (57). It leads 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.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest priceNova MicroNova Micro $0.061 · Ministral 8B Instruct $0.15 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMinistral 8B InstructMinistral 8B Instruct 131,072 · Nova Micro 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsMinistral 8B Instruct: Text · Nova Micro: Text
  • Self-hostingMinistral 8B InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Mistral Research License)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMinistral 8B InstructNova Micro
Price50%89100
Inputs & features30%2525
Context window20%2424
Overall100%57/10062/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Nova Micro specifications side by side
SpecificationMinistral 8B InstructMistral AINova MicroAmazon
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)——
ECI rank——
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions27.2%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.15$0.035 (best)
Output$0.15$0.14 (best)
Cached input—$0.0088
Blended (3:1)$0.15$0.061 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 1 providersOfficial Amazon Bedrock API
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens (best)128,000 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens10,000 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningNoNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenMistral Research LicenseProprietary
API model ID—amazon.nova-micro-v1:0
API providers13 (best)
ReleasedOct 16, 2024Dec 3, 2024
Knowledge cutoff—Oct 2024
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 8B Instruct$1.80
  • Nova Micro$0.63
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Ministral 8B Instruct or Nova Micro?

Nova Micro is the better all-round choice, scoring 62/100 against Ministral 8B Instruct (57). It leads 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.

Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B Instruct or Nova Micro?

Nova Micro is cheaper at $0.035 input / $0.14 output per million tokens (official Amazon Bedrock API price). Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.061 per million tokens for Nova Micro versus $0.15 for Ministral 8B Instruct (2.4× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Ministral 8B Instruct has not been scored yet and Nova Micro has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Ministral 8B Instruct and Nova Micro yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Ministral 8B Instruct has the largest context window at 131,072 tokens, against 128,000 for Nova Micro. Maximum output per response: Ministral 8B Instruct up to 8,192, Nova Micro up to 10,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Ministral 8B Instruct accepts text; Nova Micro accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

Ministral 8B Instruct publishes its weights (Mistral Research License) and can be self-hosted; Nova Micro is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Nova Micro is the newest, released Dec 3, 2024. Ministral 8B Instruct came out Oct 16, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Nova Micro Oct 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.

05 — Keep comparing

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