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Codestral 2 vs o4

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 · o4 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not.

  • Context windowCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× 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.

  • Modalitieso4

    o4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Codestral 2.

  • OpennessCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 ships open weights (Mistral Non-Production License); o4 is API-only.

On balance Codestral 2 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against o4's 1. Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while o4 does not. Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 200K, 1.3× 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 o4 handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Codestral 2 ships open weights (Mistral Non-Production License); o4 is API-only.

o4 is the newer of the two, released 11 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 o4 sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecCodestral 2o4
ProviderMistralOpenAI
ReleasedJan 2025Dec 2025
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window256K tokens200K 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
  • o4Pricing 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 2o4
  • 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 o4 if

o4 fits when…

  • Exceptional performance on hard math and reasoning benchmarks
  • Good at multi-step planning and verification
  • Strong scientific reasoning
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
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 2o4 vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Codestral 2 or o4 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 200K for o4.
  • Is Codestral 2 or o4 better for coding?
    Both Codestral 2 and o4 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). o4 is API-only.
  • When were Codestral 2 and o4 released?
    Codestral 2 was released by Mistral on 2025-01-14. o4 was released by OpenAI on 2025-12-15.
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