Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs Gemma 3 27B IT vs Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct
Too close to call on our weighted score (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62, Gemma 3 27B IT 60, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.1 24B
55/100- ECI127.5
- Price$0.229 / $0.436
- Context128K
GoogleGemma 3 27B IT
60/100- ECI130.0
- Price$0.08 / $0.20
- Context131K
MetaLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct
62/100- ECI129.7
- Price$0.225 / $0.69
- Context10M
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62/100, Gemma 3 27B IT 60/100, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Gemma 3 27B IT for raw capability and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityGemma 3 27B ITCapabilities Index (ECI): Gemma 3 27B IT 130.0 · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5
- Lowest priceGemma 3 27B ITGemma 3 27B IT $0.11 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B $0.281 · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct $0.341 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextLlama 4 Scout 17B InstructLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 10,000,000 · Gemma 3 27B IT 131,072 · Mistral Small 3.1 24B 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsMistral Small 3.1 24B: Text, Images · Gemma 3 27B IT: Text, Images · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct: Text, Images
- Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
| Measure | Weight | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | Gemma 3 27B IT | Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 50 | 53 | 52 |
| Price | 25% | 76 | 95 | 72 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 60 | 50 | 50 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 100 |
| Overall | 100% | 55/100 | 60/100 | 62/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AI | Gemma 3 27B ITGoogle | Llama 4 Scout 17B InstructMeta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 127.5 | 130.0 (best) | 129.7 |
| ECI rank | #132 of 148 | #125 of 148 (best) | #126 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 47.5% | 47.7% | 51.8% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 5.8% | 22.5% (best) | 7.8% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.229 | $0.08 (best) | $0.225 |
| Output | $0.436 | $0.20 (best) | $0.69 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.281 | $0.11 (best) | $0.341 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 2 providers | Median of 9 providers | Median of 4 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens | 10,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 16,384 tokens | 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 | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Open |
| API model ID | — | — | — |
| API providers | 2 | 10 (best) | 4 |
| Released | Mar 17, 2025 | Mar 12, 2025 | Apr 5, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jun 2024 | Aug 2024 | 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.
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B$3.16
- Gemma 3 27B IT$1.20
- Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct$3.63
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mistral Small 3.1 24B, Gemma 3 27B IT or Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62/100, Gemma 3 27B IT 60/100, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 55/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Gemma 3 27B IT for raw capability and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct for long inputs. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.1 24B, Gemma 3 27B IT or Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct?
Gemma 3 27B IT is cheaper at $0.08 input / $0.20 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers). Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.229 input / $0.436 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers); Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct costs $0.225 input / $0.69 output per million tokens (median across 4 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.11 per million tokens for Gemma 3 27B IT versus $0.281 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B (2.6× as much) and $0.341 for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (3.1× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Gemma 3 27B IT scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Gemma 3 27B IT 130.0 (#125 of 148), Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7 (#126 of 148) and Mistral Small 3.1 24B 127.5 (#132 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (124.1–132.2 vs 124.8–131.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 51.8%, Gemma 3 27B IT 47.7%, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 47.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Gemma 3 27B IT 22.5%, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 7.8%, Mistral Small 3.1 24B 5.8%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Small 3.1 24B, Gemma 3 27B IT and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Gemma 3 27B IT 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 Scout 17B Instruct has the largest context window at 10,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Gemma 3 27B IT and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B. Maximum output per response: Mistral Small 3.1 24B up to 16,384, Gemma 3 27B IT up to 131,072, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B accepts text and images; Gemma 3 27B IT accepts text and images; Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct accepts text and images. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Yes, all three publish their weights, so you can self-host them.
Which is newer?
Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is the newest, released Apr 5, 2025. Mistral Small 3.1 24B came out Mar 17, 2025; Gemma 3 27B IT came out Mar 12, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Small 3.1 24B Jun 2024, Gemma 3 27B IT Aug 2024, Llama 4 Scout 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
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs GPT-4o miniOpenAI · ECI 126.6
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B vs Claude Haiku 3.5Anthropic · ECI 127.2
- Gemma 3 27B IT vs Mistral Small 3.2Mistral AI · ECI 131.7
- Gemma 3 27B IT vs Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 136.2
- Gemma 3 27B IT vs GLM-4.7-FlashZ.ai (Zhipu)
- Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs DeepSeek-V3DeepSeek · ECI 132.3
