Codestral 2 vs Pixtral 12B
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 · Pixtral 12B specs- PriceCodestral 2
Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B 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.
- ModalitiesPixtral 12B
Pixtral 12B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Codestral 2.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Codestral 2 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Pixtral 12B's 1. Codestral 2 publishes pricing ($0.90 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B 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. They differ in modality coverage, Codestral 2 handles text while Pixtral 12B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
Codestral 2 is the newer of the two, released 4 months after Pixtral 12B, 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 Pixtral 12B sees more deployments in vision 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
| Spec | Codestral 2 | Pixtral 12B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Mistral |
| Released | Jan 2025 | Sep 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision |
| 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 (Apache-2.0) |
| 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
- Pixtral 12BPricing 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 Pixtral 12B.
Pixtral 12B fits when…
- Apache-2.0
- Vision in 12B size
- Single-GPU
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Consider Mistral Large 2
Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.
Frequently asked
Is Codestral 2 or Pixtral 12B 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 Pixtral 12B.Is Codestral 2 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
Both Codestral 2 and Pixtral 12B 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; Pixtral 12B under Apache-2.0.When were Codestral 2 and Pixtral 12B released?
Codestral 2 was released by Mistral on 2025-01-14. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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