Mistral Small 3.2 vs Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct
Too close to call on our weighted score (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62, Mistral Small 3.2 60). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Mistral AIMistral Small 3.2
60/100- ECI131.7
- Price$0.10 / $0.30
- Context128K
MetaLlama 4 Scout 17B Instruct
62/100- ECI129.7
- Price$0.225 / $0.69
- Context10M
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mistral Small 3.2 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%.
- CapabilityMistral Small 3.2Capabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 · Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7
- Lowest priceMistral Small 3.2Mistral Small 3.2 $0.15 · 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 · Mistral Small 3.2 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsMistral Small 3.2: 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 3.2 | Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 55 | 52 |
| Price | 25% | 89 | 72 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 50 | 50 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 100 |
| Overall | 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 3.2Mistral AI | Llama 4 Scout 17B InstructMeta |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 131.7 (best) | 129.7 |
| ECI rank | #123 of 148 (best) | #126 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 49.1% | 51.8% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 30.3% (best) | 7.8% |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.10 (best) | $0.225 |
| Output | $0.30 (best) | $0.69 |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.15 (best) | $0.341 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Median of 4 providers |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 10,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 16,384 tokens | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Open | Open |
| API model ID | mistral-small-2506 | — |
| API providers | 6 (best) | 4 |
| Released | Jun 20, 2025 | Apr 5, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Mar 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.
- Mistral Small 3.2$1.60
- Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct$3.63
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mistral Small 3.2 or Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 62/100, Mistral Small 3.2 60/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Mistral Small 3.2 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 3.2 or Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct?
Mistral Small 3.2 is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). 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 $0.15 per million tokens for Mistral Small 3.2 versus $0.341 for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (2.3× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Mistral Small 3.2 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Mistral Small 3.2 131.7 (#123 of 148) and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 129.7 (#126 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (126.6–133.9 vs 124.8–131.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 51.8%, Mistral Small 3.2 49.1%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Mistral Small 3.2 30.3%, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 7.8%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral Small 3.2 and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Mistral Small 3.2 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both 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 128,000 for Mistral Small 3.2. Maximum output per response: Mistral Small 3.2 up to 16,384, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mistral Small 3.2 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, both publish their weights, so you can self-host them.
Which is newer?
Mistral Small 3.2 is the newest, released Jun 20, 2025. Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct came out Apr 5, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Mistral Small 3.2 Mar 2025, 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
- Add Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteThree-way comparison
- Mistral Small 3.2 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash-LiteGoogle · ECI 133.9
- Mistral Small 3.2 vs Qwen3 30B A3BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 136.2
- Mistral Small 3.2 vs Llama 4 Maverick 17B InstructMeta · ECI 132.2
- Mistral Small 3.2 vs GPT OSS 20BOpenAI · ECI 137.8
- Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral AI · ECI 127.5
- Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct vs DeepSeek-V3DeepSeek · ECI 132.3
