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DeepSeek-R1 vs Mistral Large 2

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

Updated

DeepSeek-R1 specs · Mistral Large 2 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceDeepSeek-R1

    DeepSeek-R1 is roughly 2.7× cheaper on output tokens ($2.19 vs $6.00 per 1M).

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 128K-token context window.

  • 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 DeepSeek-R1 edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Mistral Large 2's 0. DeepSeek-R1 is roughly 2.7× cheaper on output tokens ($2.19 vs $6.00 per 1M). Both ship a 128K-token context window.

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.

DeepSeek-R1 is the newer of the two, released 6 months after Mistral Large 2, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. DeepSeek-R1 is usually picked for reasoning and math workloads, while Mistral Large 2 sees more deployments in coding llm and multilingual. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecDeepSeek-R1Mistral Large 2
ProviderDeepSeekMistral
ReleasedJan 2025Jul 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.55 / 1M tokens$2.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$2.19 / 1M tokens$6.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2024-072024-04
Open weightsYes (MIT)Yes (Mistral Research License)
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$4.94 vs $15.00
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$49.35 vs $150
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$95.64 vs $336

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $4.94 vs $15.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $49.35 vs $150 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $95.64 vs $336 per month, model A comes out ahead.

Price calculator

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

  • DeepSeek-R1$0.165
  • Mistral Large 2$0.500

Benchmarks compared

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

DeepSeek-R1Mistral Large 2
  • MMLU,84.0
  • HumanEval,92.0
  • GPQA71.5
Pick DeepSeek-R1 if

DeepSeek-R1 fits when…

  • Open-weight reasoning model on par with o1
  • MIT license
  • Cheap reasoning per token
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 2.7× cheaper than Mistral Large 2 on output tokens.
Pick Mistral Large 2 if

Mistral Large 2 fits when…

  • Strong code and math
  • EU data residency
  • Multilingual
Don't want either?

Consider DeepSeek-V3

DeepSeek's flagship 671B-parameter MoE, frontier-level quality at a tiny fraction of frontier prices.

See DeepSeek-V3 specsDeepSeek-R1 vs DeepSeek-V3Mistral Large 2 vs DeepSeek-V3

Frequently asked

  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or Mistral Large 2 cheaper?
    DeepSeek-R1 is cheaper at $2.19 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $6.00 / 1M tokens for Mistral Large 2.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both DeepSeek-R1 and Mistral Large 2 ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or Mistral Large 2 better for coding?
    Both DeepSeek-R1 and Mistral Large 2 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. DeepSeek-R1 is licensed under MIT; Mistral Large 2 under Mistral Research License.
  • When were DeepSeek-R1 and Mistral Large 2 released?
    DeepSeek-R1 was released by DeepSeek on 2025-01-20. Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24.
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