Compare / Ministral 3 3B vs LFM2.5 2.6B
Ministral 3 3B vs LFM2.5 2.6B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
Ministral 3 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 49.4 vs 43.2, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, Ministral 3 3B wins 1 and LFM2.5 2.6B wins 2. Both need about 3.3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Ministral 3 3B is cheaper through an API: $0.10 per million tokens against $0.39.
Pick Ministral 3 3B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you need math and reasoning
- API cost matters most
- you work with long documents
- you need a permissive license (Apache-2.0)
- you need image input
Pick LFM2.5 2.6B if…
- you mostly write code
- you want the more widely used model (more quantized builds and community support)
Specifications
| Ministral 3 3B | LFM2.5 2.6B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 49.4 (likely 45–54) | 43.2 (likely 39–48) |
| Lab | Mistral AI · Europe | Liquid AI · United States |
| Released | 2025-12-02 | 2026-07-28 |
| Parameters | 3B (dense) | 2.7B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~3.3 GB | ~2.3 GB |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input | text, image | text |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | No thinking |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LFM Open License |
| API price / 1M tokens | $0.10 ($0.10 in, $0.10 out) | $0.39 ($0.35 in, $0.50 out) |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 17.7K | 69K |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | Ministral 3 3B | LFM2.5 2.6B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 53.4 | 57.8 |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | ≈ 6 | 5.9 |
| AIME Math | 72.1 | 51.9 |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 54.8 | 59.4 |
| SWE-bench Verified Coding | ≈ 30 | 18.0 |
| IFBench Instruction following | — | 59.2 |
| IFEval Instruction following | — | 95.4 |
| BFCL Agentic | — | 56.9 |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, Ministral 3 3B or LFM2.5 2.6B?
Ministral 3 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 49.4 vs 43.2, although their likely ranges overlap, so the lead is not certain. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, Ministral 3 3B wins 1 and LFM2.5 2.6B wins 2.
Which is cheaper to run?
Ministral 3 3B is cheaper through an API: $0.10 per million tokens against $0.39. Both need about 3.3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Ministral 3 3B has the longer context window: 256K tokens against 128K.
Can I use Ministral 3 3B and LFM2.5 2.6B commercially?
Ministral 3 3B is released under Apache-2.0 and LFM2.5 2.6B under LFM Open License. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.