Compare / MiniCPM5 2B vs SmolLM3 3B
MiniCPM5 2B vs SmolLM3 3B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
MiniCPM5 2B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 57.5 vs 30.4. On the 4 benchmarks both labs report, MiniCPM5 2B wins 4 and SmolLM3 3B wins 0. Both need about 3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Neither model has a hosted API on OpenRouter, so you would run both yourself.
Pick MiniCPM5 2B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you mostly write code
- you need math and reasoning
- you need precise instruction following
- you work with long documents
Pick SmolLM3 3B if…
No clear advantage in the data we have.
Specifications
| MiniCPM5 2B | SmolLM3 3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 57.5 (likely 56–59) | 30.4 (likely 27–35) |
| Lab | OpenBMB (MiniCPM) · China | Hugging Face (SmolLM) · Europe |
| Released | 2026-09-06 | 2025-07-08 |
| Parameters | 2.5B (dense) | 3.1B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~2.4 GB | ~3 GB |
| Context window | 131K tokens | 64K tokens |
| Input | text | text |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | Hybrid (thinking on/off) |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| API price / 1M tokens | Self-host only | Self-host only |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 1.1M | 567.6K |
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 | MiniCPM5 2B | SmolLM3 3B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | 70.8 | ≈ 58 |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 70.2 | 41.7 |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | 8.9 | ≈ 2 |
| AIME Math | 86.5 | 36.7 |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 69.1 | 30.0 |
| SWE-bench Verified Coding | 46.4 | ≈ 12 |
| Terminal-Bench Agentic | 8.6 | — |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | 97.1 | — |
| IFBench Instruction following | 66.3 | — |
| MMLU Knowledge | 84.7 | — |
| Multilingual MMLU Multilingual | — | 64.1 |
| IFEval Instruction following | 86.7 | 71.2 |
| BFCL Agentic | 66.6 | — |
| MATH-500 Math | 94.6 | — |
| HMMT Math | 63.8 | — |
| AA-LCR Long context | 59.0 | — |
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, MiniCPM5 2B or SmolLM3 3B?
MiniCPM5 2B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 57.5 vs 30.4. On the 4 benchmarks both labs report, MiniCPM5 2B wins 4 and SmolLM3 3B wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Neither model has a hosted API on OpenRouter, so you would run both yourself. Both need about 3 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
MiniCPM5 2B has the longer context window: 131K tokens against 64K.
Can I use MiniCPM5 2B and SmolLM3 3B commercially?
Both are released under the Apache-2.0 license. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.