Codestral 2 vs Llama 4 8B
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 · Llama 4 8B specs- PriceCodestral 2
Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not.
- Context windowCodestral 2
Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× 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.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Codestral 2 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Llama 4 8B's 0. Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not. Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 2.0× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
Llama 4 8B is the newer of the two, released 3 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 Llama 4 8B sees more deployments in local llm and on device. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Codestral 2 | Llama 4 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Meta |
| Released | Jan 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 256K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $0.30 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Output · 1M | $0.90 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Mistral Non-Production License) | Yes (Llama 4 Community License) |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
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).
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
- Llama 4 8BPricing unavailable
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- HumanEval92.0
Codestral 2 fits when…
- Fast inline completion
- FIM support
- Self-hostable for IP-sensitive teams
- Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.
Llama 4 8B fits when…
- Runs on consumer laptops
- Broad tooling support
- Apache-2-adjacent permissiveness for most uses
Consider Mistral Large 2
Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.
Frequently asked
Is Codestral 2 or Llama 4 8B 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?
Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.Is Codestral 2 or Llama 4 8B better for coding?
Both Codestral 2 and Llama 4 8B 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?
Both ship with open weights. Codestral 2 is licensed under Mistral Non-Production License; Llama 4 8B under Llama 4 Community License.When were Codestral 2 and Llama 4 8B released?
Codestral 2 was released by Mistral on 2025-01-14. Llama 4 8B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05.
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