Grok 3 Mini vs Magistral Small 2506
Grok 3 Mini (2025) and Magistral Small 2506 (2026) are frontier reasoning models from xAI and MistralAI. Grok 3 Mini ships a 131k-token context window, while Magistral Small 2506 ships a 128K-token context window. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit. It focuses on practical selection signals rather than broad model-family marketing. The goal is to make the tradeoff clear before deeper testing.
Magistral Small 2506 is safer overall; choose Grok 3 Mini when long-context analysis matters.
Specs
| Released | 2025-02-17 | 2026-01-15 |
| Context window | 131k | 128K |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Architecture | - | decoder only |
| License | Proprietary | 1 |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Grok 3 Mini | Magistral Small 2506 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.3/1M tokens | - |
| Output price | $0.5/1M tokens | - |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Grok 3 Mini | Magistral Small 2506 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark rows are currently sourced for this pair.
Deep dive
The capability footprint differs most on multimodal input: Grok 3 Mini, reasoning mode: Magistral Small 2506, and structured outputs: Grok 3 Mini. Both models share the core language-model surface, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
Pricing coverage is uneven: Grok 3 Mini has $0.3/1M input tokens and Magistral Small 2506 has no token price sourced yet. Provider availability is 1 tracked routes versus 1. Treat unknown pricing as an integration gap, then verify the route you will actually call before estimating production spend.
Choose Grok 3 Mini when long-context analysis and larger context windows are central to the workload. Choose Magistral Small 2506 when reasoning depth are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship. This keeps the decision grounded in measurable tradeoffs instead of brand-level assumptions. It also helps separate model capability from provider packaging, which can change cost and latency.
FAQ
Which has a larger context window, Grok 3 Mini or Magistral Small 2506?
Grok 3 Mini supports 131k tokens, while Magistral Small 2506 supports 128K tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Is Grok 3 Mini or Magistral Small 2506 open source?
Grok 3 Mini is listed under Proprietary. Magistral Small 2506 is listed under 1. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for multimodal input, Grok 3 Mini or Magistral Small 2506?
Grok 3 Mini has the clearer documented multimodal input signal in this comparison. If multimodal input is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Which is better for reasoning mode, Grok 3 Mini or Magistral Small 2506?
Magistral Small 2506 has the clearer documented reasoning mode signal in this comparison. If reasoning mode is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Which is better for structured outputs, Grok 3 Mini or Magistral Small 2506?
Grok 3 Mini has the clearer documented structured outputs signal in this comparison. If structured outputs is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Where can I run Grok 3 Mini and Magistral Small 2506?
Grok 3 Mini is available on OpenRouter. Magistral Small 2506 is available on NVIDIA NIM. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options. Use this as a quick comparison signal, then confirm the provider-specific limits before committing to production.
Continue comparing
Last reviewed: 2026-04-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.