Magistral Small 2506 vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Magistral Small 2506 (2026) and Mistral Medium 3.5 (2026) are frontier-tier reasoning models from MistralAI. Magistral Small 2506 ships a 128K-token context window, while Mistral Medium 3.5 ships a 256K-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.
Mistral Medium 3.5 is safer overall; choose Magistral Small 2506 when provider fit matters.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2026-01-15 | 2026-04-29 |
| Context window | 128K | 256K |
| Parameters | — | 128B |
| Architecture | decoder only | decoder only |
| License | 1 | Mistral License |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Magistral Small 2506 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | - | $1.5/1M tokens |
| Output price | - | $7.5/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Magistral Small 2506 | Mistral Medium 3.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | Yes |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes |
| Function calling | No | Yes |
| Tool use | No | Yes |
| Structured outputs | No | Yes |
| Code execution | No | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark rows are currently sourced for this pair.
Deep dive
The capability footprint differs most on vision: Mistral Medium 3.5, multimodal input: Mistral Medium 3.5, function calling: Mistral Medium 3.5, tool use: Mistral Medium 3.5, and structured outputs: Mistral Medium 3.5. Both models share reasoning mode, 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: Magistral Small 2506 has no token price sourced yet and Mistral Medium 3.5 has $1.5/1M input tokens. 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 Magistral Small 2506 when provider fit are central to the workload. Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 when long-context analysis and larger context windows 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, Magistral Small 2506 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 supports 256K 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 Magistral Small 2506 or Mistral Medium 3.5 open source?
Magistral Small 2506 is listed under 1. Mistral Medium 3.5 is listed under Mistral License. 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 vision, Magistral Small 2506 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 has the clearer documented vision signal in this comparison. If vision is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Which is better for multimodal input, Magistral Small 2506 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Mistral Medium 3.5 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, Magistral Small 2506 or Mistral Medium 3.5?
Both Magistral Small 2506 and Mistral Medium 3.5 expose reasoning mode. The better choice depends on benchmark fit, context budget, pricing, and whether your provider route exposes the same capability surface.
Where can I run Magistral Small 2506 and Mistral Medium 3.5?
Magistral Small 2506 is available on NVIDIA NIM. Mistral Medium 3.5 is available on Mistral AI Studio. 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: 2026-05-05. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.