Mistral NeMo vs NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Mistral · France  |  NVIDIA · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick Mistral NeMo for multilingual understanding across 11+ languages or runs on a single gpu with fp8 quantization-aware training. Pick NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b) or 1m-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% ruler @ 1m). On a tight budget at scale, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is the value pick.

Mistral NeMo (Mistral, France) and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (NVIDIA, US) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. Mistral NeMo is a 12B Apache-2.0 open-weight model co-developed by Mistral and NVIDIA, pairing a 128K context and strong multilingual performance with efficiency that fits on a single GPU. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is nVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. They diverge most on price and context window — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecMistral NeMoNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super
ProviderMistral (France) NVIDIA (US)
ReleasedJuly 18, 2024 March 11, 2026
Context window128K (~197 pages) 1M (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.02/$0.03 per 1M tokens Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?Yes — self-hostable Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext text, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published 60.47%
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Multilingual understanding across 11+ languages

Mistral NeMo

A core design strength of Mistral NeMo.

Runs on a single GPU with FP8 quantization-aware training

Mistral NeMo

A core design strength of Mistral NeMo.

128K-token context for long documents

Mistral NeMo

A core design strength of Mistral NeMo.

High-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

A core design strength of NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super.

Lowest cost at scale

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

At Open weight (self-host / free), it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Its 1M window is about 7.6× larger, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Mistral NeMo, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.

Anyone whose priority is multilingual understanding across 11+ languages

Mistral NeMo

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b)

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super or Mistral NeMo

Origin (France vs US) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.

Mistral NeMo: where it fits

A 12B Apache-2.0 open-weight model co-developed by Mistral and NVIDIA, pairing a 128K context and strong multilingual performance with efficiency that fits on a single GPU. Released July 18, 2024 by Mistral, it is built for multilingual understanding across 11+ languages, runs on a single GPU with FP8 quantization-aware training, 128K-token context for long documents, and function calling and structured tool use.

Its trade-offs are real: 12B scale trails larger frontier models on complex reasoning and coding, and text-only; no vision or audio input. At $0.02 in / $0.03 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super: where it fits

NVIDIA's open 120B-total/12B-active hybrid Mamba-Transformer MoE built for high-throughput agentic reasoning at 1M-token context. Released March 11, 2026 by NVIDIA, it is built for high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x GPT-OSS-120B), 1M-token context with strong long-context retrieval (91.6% RULER @ 1M), strong math reasoning (90.21% AIME 2025), and fully open weights, datasets, and recipes for self-hosting.

Its trade-offs: text-only; no image, audio, or video input, and requires roughly 8x H100-80GB GPUs to self-host at BF16. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

The bottom line for this matchup

This is less "which is smarter" and more "which ecosystem fits." Mistral NeMo (France) and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super (US) differ on pricing philosophy, data-residency, and tooling as much as on raw scores. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is the cheaper option, which matters at volume. The pragmatic move is to run one real task through both and judge the outputs against your own constraints — including where your data is allowed to be processed.

Want both Mistral NeMo and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral NeMo or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Mistral NeMo, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Mistral NeMo leans toward multilingual understanding across 11+ languages while NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super leans toward high-throughput agentic reasoning (up to 2.2x gpt-oss-120b), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Mistral NeMo or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super is cheaper — $0.02/$0.03 per 1M tokens vs Open weight (self-host / free).

Which has the bigger context window?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — 1M vs 128K, about 7.6× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both Mistral NeMo and NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Mistral NeMo, NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, Mistral NeMo or NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super?

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Super — released March 11, 2026, about 20 months after Mistral NeMo.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.