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Codestral 2 vs Phi-4

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 · Phi-4 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not.

  • Context windowCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 16K, 16.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksCodestral 2

    Codestral 2 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 92.0 vs 82.6.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Codestral 2 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Phi-4's 0. Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not. Codestral 2 accepts 256K tokens vs 16K, 16.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

Codestral 2 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 92.0 vs 82.6. 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.

Codestral 2 is the newer of the two, released 1 months after Phi-4, 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 Phi-4 sees more deployments in on device and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecCodestral 2Phi-4
ProviderMistralMicrosoft
ReleasedJan 2025Dec 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window256K tokens16K 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)Yes (MIT)
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
  • Phi-4Pricing 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 2Phi-4
  • MMLU,84.8
  • HumanEval92.082.6
Pick Codestral 2 if

Codestral 2 fits when…

  • Fast inline completion
  • FIM support
  • Self-hostable for IP-sensitive teams
  • Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
Pick Phi-4 if

Phi-4 fits when…

  • Exceptional quality at 14B parameters
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Strong on math
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 2Phi-4 vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Codestral 2 or Phi-4 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 16K for Phi-4.
  • Is Codestral 2 or Phi-4 better for coding?
    Both Codestral 2 and Phi-4 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; Phi-4 under MIT.
  • When were Codestral 2 and Phi-4 released?
    Codestral 2 was released by Mistral on 2025-01-14. Phi-4 was released by Microsoft on 2024-12-12.
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