Mistral Small 3.2 vs Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite comes out ahead, 71 to 60 and 58 on our weighted score, though Mistral Small 3.2 is 14% cheaper per token.
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.2
60/100- ECI131.7
- Price$0.10 / $0.30
- Context128K
MetaLlama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct
58/100- ECI132.2
- Price$0.321 / $0.91
- Context1M
- Our pick
GoogleGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite
71/100- ECI133.9
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1.05M
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is our pick
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Mistral Small 3.2 (60) and Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct (58). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Mistral Small 3.2 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 · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 132.2 · Mistral Small 3.2 131.7
- Lowest priceMistral Small 3.2Mistral Small 3.2 $0.15 · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite $0.175 · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct $0.468 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 1,048,576 · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 1,000,000 · Mistral Small 3.2 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash-LiteMistral Small 3.2: Text, Images · Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct: Text, Images · Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video
- Self-hostingMistral Small 3.2 and Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Mistral Small 3.2 | Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct | Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 55 | 56 | 58 |
| Price | 25% | 89 | 66 | 86 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 50 | 50 | 100 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 60 | 61 |
| Overall | 100% | 60/100 | 58/100 | 71/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mistral Small 3.2Mistral AI | Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructMeta | Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 131.7 | 132.2 | 133.9 (best) |
| ECI rank | #123 of 148 | #122 of 148 | #118 of 148 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 49.1% | 67.0% (best) | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 30.3% (best) | 20.6% | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.10 (best) | $0.321 | $0.10 (best) |
| Output | $0.30 (best) | $0.91 | $0.40 |
| Cached input | — | — | $0.01 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.15 (best) | $0.468 | $0.175 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Median of 6 providers | Official Google API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 16,384 tokens | 16,384 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | Yes |
| Audio | No | No | Yes |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | No | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Proprietary |
| API model ID | mistral-small-2506 | — | gemini-2.5-flash-lite |
| API providers | 6 | 6 | 20 (best) |
| Released | Jun 20, 2025 | Apr 5, 2025 | Jun 17, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Mar 2025 | Aug 2024 | Jan 2025 |
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 3.2$1.60
- Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct$5.03
- Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite$1.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mistral Small 3.2, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite?
Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is the better all-round choice, scoring 71/100 against Mistral Small 3.2 (60) and Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct (58). It leads on capability and inputs & features. Mistral Small 3.2 wins on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Mistral Small 3.2, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct or Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite?
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite costs $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Google API price); Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct costs $0.321 input / $0.91 output per million tokens (median across 6 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.15 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3.2 versus $0.175 for Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite (1.2× as much) and $0.468 for Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct (3.1× 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), Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct 132.2 (#122 of 148) and Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 (#123 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (129.8–136.3 vs 128.0–134.1), so treat the gap as small.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Small 3.2, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct and Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite 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 1,000,000 for Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct and 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.2. Maximum output per response: Mistral Small 3.2 up to 16,384, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct up to 16,384, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mistral Small 3.2 accepts text and images; Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct accepts text and images; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Mistral Small 3.2 and Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Mistral Small 3.2 is the newest, released Jun 20, 2025. Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite came out Jun 17, 2025; Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct came out Apr 5, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Small 3.2 Mar 2025, Llama 4 Maverick 17B Instruct Aug 2024, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite Jan 2025.
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.
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