Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium cheaper?

Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.

Which has the larger context window?

Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium ship a 128K-token context window.

Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium better for coding?

Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.

When were Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium released?

Llama 3.2 3B was released by Meta on 2024-09-25. Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18.

Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium cheaper?

Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.

Which has the larger context window?

Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium ship a 128K-token context window.

Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium better for coding?

Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.

When were Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium released?

Llama 3.2 3B was released by Meta on 2024-09-25. Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18.

Llama 3.2 3B vs Mistral Medium

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

UpdatedApr 30, 2026

Llama 3.2 3B specs · Mistral Medium specs

Verdict by category

PriceMistral Medium
Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 3.2 3B does not.
Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
OpennessLlama 3.2 3B
Llama 3.2 3B ships open weights (Llama 3 Community License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 3.2 3B does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Llama 3.2 3B ships open weights (Llama 3 Community License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

Mistral Medium is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Llama 3.2 3B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 3.2 3B is usually picked for on device and edge deployment workloads, while Mistral Medium sees more deployments in customer support and chatbots. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

Spec	Llama 3.2 3B	Mistral Medium
Provider	Meta	Mistral
Released	Sep 2024	Dec 2024
Modalities	text	text
Context window	128K tokens	128K tokens
Max output	,	,
Input · 1M	Pricing not published	$0.40 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M	Pricing not published	$2.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff	,	,
Open weights	Yes (Llama 3 Community License)	No
API available	Yes	Yes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $4.20
Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $42.00
RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $72.00

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

Input tokens / dayOutput tokens / dayHorizon

Llama 3.2 3BPricing unavailable
Mistral Medium$0.140

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.

Pick Llama 3.2 3B if

Llama 3.2 3B fits when…

Runs on phones
128k context for its size
Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 3 Community License).

Pick Mistral Medium if

Mistral Medium fits when…

Mid-tier balance
EU-friendly

Don't want either?

Consider Llama 4 405B

Meta's flagship open-weight model, sparse MoE design competitive with closed-frontier flagships.

See Llama 4 405B specs Llama 3.2 3B vs Llama 4 405B Mistral Medium vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
Which has the larger context window?
Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium ship a 128K-token context window.
Is Llama 3.2 3B or Mistral Medium better for coding?
Both Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
Are either of these models open source?
Llama 3.2 3B ships open weights (Llama 3 Community License). Mistral Medium is API-only.
When were Llama 3.2 3B and Mistral Medium released?
Llama 3.2 3B was released by Meta on 2024-09-25. Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18.

Friday digest

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.