Compare / Nova 2 Lite vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Nova 2 Lite vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 3 sources that measured both models.
Nova 2 Lite or Mistral Small 3.1 24B? The short answer
- Mistral Small 3.1 24B is cheaper: $0.40 against $0.85 per million tokens, 2.1 times less.
- Nova 2 Lite scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 13.4 against 7.1.
- On our business benchmarks, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge.
- On our business benchmarks, Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use and writing.
At a glance
| Nova 2 Lite | Mistral Small 3.1 24B | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per million tokens | $0.30 in · $2.50 out | $0.35 in · $0.56 out |
| Blended (3 in : 1 out) | $0.85 | $0.40 |
| Cheapest host, blended | $0.85 (Amazon Bedrock) | – |
| Intelligence Index | 13.4 | 7.1 |
| Spring Prompt overall | – | – |
| Output speed, tokens a second | 210 | – |
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Weights | Closed | Open |
| Developer based in | the US | France |
Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.
Which is better for what
Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.
| Use case | Nova 2 Lite | Mistral Small 3.1 24B |
|---|---|---|
| Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls | 130 of 161 | 114 of 161 |
| Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge | 112 of 195 | 172 of 195 |
| WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality | 168 of 187 | 157 of 187 |
| Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers | 76 of 153 | not measured |
Every shared result
| Benchmark | Metric | Nova 2 Lite | Mistral Small 3.1 24B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Business, management and financeArena rating | 1,351 | 1,297 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Creative writingArena rating | 1,269 | 1,270 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Expert promptsArena rating | 1,354 | 1,302 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Instruction followingArena rating | 1,327 | 1,294 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | OverallArena rating | 1,335 | 1,303 |
| Arena (formerly LMArena)reported | Writing, literature and languageArena rating | 1,298 | 1,290 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score | 23.0 | 26.3 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score | 13.4 | 7.10 |
| Artificial Analysisreported | GPQA Diamond% of questions | 81.1% | 45.4% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Humanity's Last Exam% of questions | 11.6% | 4.3% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | IFBench% of instructions | 70.7% | 29.9% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions | 60.3% | 22.3% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks | 16.1% | 26.2% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks | 17.4% | 7.6% |
| Artificial Analysisreported | Τ²-bench telecom% of tasks | 75.7% | 25.1% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Requested-length error% off the requested word count | 45.0% | 11.0% |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Style adherencescore from 0 to 1 | 0.35 | 0.35 |
| UGI Leaderboardreported | Writing scorescore out of 100 | 23.5 | 32.1 |
Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.
Quick answers
Is Nova 2 Lite better than Mistral Small 3.1 24B?
It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Nova 2 Lite ranks higher for reasoning and knowledge; Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use and writing.
Which is cheaper, Nova 2 Lite or Mistral Small 3.1 24B?
Mistral Small 3.1 24B costs $0.40 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.85 for Nova 2 Lite.
Run Nova 2 Lite and Mistral Small 3.1 24B on your own prompt
Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.