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Codestral 2 vs GPT-5.5

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Codestral 2 specs · GPT-5.5 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while GPT-5.5 does not.

  • Context windowGPT-5.5

    GPT-5.5 accepts 400K tokens vs 256K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesGPT-5.5

    GPT-5.5 supports 3 modalities (text, vision, audio) vs 1 for Codestral 2.

  • OpennessCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 ships open weights (Mistral Non-Production License); GPT-5.5 is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Codestral 2 and GPT-5.5: 2 category wins each, with the rest tied. Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while GPT-5.5 does not. GPT-5.5 accepts 400K tokens vs 256K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Codestral 2 handles text while GPT-5.5 handles text, vision, audio, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Codestral 2 ships open weights (Mistral Non-Production License); GPT-5.5 is API-only.

GPT-5.5 is the newer of the two, released 14 months after Codestral 2, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Codestral 2 is usually picked for code completion and coding llm workloads, while GPT-5.5 sees more deployments in agents and tool use. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecCodestral 2GPT-5.5
ProviderMistralOpenAI
ReleasedJan 2025Mar 2026
Modalitiestexttext, vision, audio
Context window256K tokens400K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.30 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$0.90 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Mistral Non-Production License)No
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$2.25 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$22.50 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$50.40 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Codestral 2$0.075
  • GPT-5.5Pricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Codestral 2GPT-5.5
  • HumanEval92.0
Pick Codestral 2 if

Codestral 2 fits when…

  • Fast inline completion
  • FIM support
  • Self-hostable for IP-sensitive teams
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Mistral Non-Production License).
Pick GPT-5.5 if

GPT-5.5 fits when…

  • Industry-leading tool-use and function-calling reliability
  • Strong end-to-end agent performance across SWE-bench and GAIA
  • Wide ecosystem support, ChatGPT, Realtime API, Responses API
  • Long-context tasks, handles 400K tokens vs 256K for Codestral 2.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision, audio.
Don't want either?

Consider Mistral Large 2

Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.

See Mistral Large 2 specsCodestral 2 vs Mistral Large 2GPT-5.5 vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Codestral 2 or GPT-5.5 cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    GPT-5.5 accepts 400K tokens vs 256K for Codestral 2.
  • Is Codestral 2 or GPT-5.5 better for coding?
    Both Codestral 2 and GPT-5.5 are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Codestral 2 ships open weights (Mistral Non-Production License). GPT-5.5 is API-only.
  • When were Codestral 2 and GPT-5.5 released?
    Codestral 2 was released by Mistral on 2025-01-14. GPT-5.5 was released by OpenAI on 2026-03-01.
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