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DeepSeek-V3 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-V3 specs · Mistral Large 2 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceDeepSeek-V3

    DeepSeek-V3 is roughly 5.5× cheaper on output tokens ($1.10 vs $6.00 per 1M).

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 128K-token context window.

  • BenchmarksTie

    Across 2 shared benchmarks the two models split wins evenly. Look at task-specific scores rather than the average.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance DeepSeek-V3 edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Mistral Large 2's 0. DeepSeek-V3 is roughly 5.5× cheaper on output tokens ($1.10 vs $6.00 per 1M). Both ship a 128K-token context window.

Across 2 shared benchmarks the two models split wins evenly. Look at task-specific scores rather than the average. 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-V3 is the newer of the two, released 5 months after Mistral Large 2, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. DeepSeek-V3 is usually picked for open source llm and commercial use llm 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-V3Mistral Large 2
ProviderDeepSeekMistral
ReleasedDec 2024Jul 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.27 / 1M tokens$2.00 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$1.10 / 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$2.46 vs $15.00
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$24.60 vs $150
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$47.10 vs $336

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $2.46 vs $15.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $24.60 vs $150 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $47.10 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-V3$0.082
  • 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-V3Mistral Large 2
  • MMLU88.584.0
  • HumanEval90.092.0
Pick DeepSeek-V3 if

DeepSeek-V3 fits when…

  • Frontier-level quality at open-weight prices
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Cheap to serve via MoE architecture
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 5.5× 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-R1

First open-weight reasoning model to match o1, the release that proved RL-from-scratch reasoning training was reproducible.

See DeepSeek-R1 specsDeepSeek-V3 vs DeepSeek-R1Mistral Large 2 vs DeepSeek-R1

Frequently asked

  • Is DeepSeek-V3 or Mistral Large 2 cheaper?
    DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper at $1.10 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $6.00 / 1M tokens for Mistral Large 2.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both DeepSeek-V3 and Mistral Large 2 ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is DeepSeek-V3 or Mistral Large 2 better for coding?
    Both DeepSeek-V3 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-V3 is licensed under MIT; Mistral Large 2 under Mistral Research License.
  • When were DeepSeek-V3 and Mistral Large 2 released?
    DeepSeek-V3 was released by DeepSeek on 2024-12-26. Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24.
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