Ministral 8B 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
Ministral 8B specs · Mistral Large 2 specs- PriceMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Ministral 8B does not.
- 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 Mistral Large 2 edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Ministral 8B's 0. Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Ministral 8B does not. 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.
Ministral 8B is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Mistral Large 2, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Ministral 8B is usually picked for edge deployment and on device 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
| Spec | Ministral 8B | Mistral Large 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Mistral |
| Released | Oct 2024 | Jul 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $2.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $6.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | 2024-04 |
| Open weights | Yes (Mistral Research License) | Yes (Mistral Research License) |
| 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, vs $15.00
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $150
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $336
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.
- Ministral 8BPricing unavailable
- 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.
- MMLU,84.0
- HumanEval,92.0
Ministral 8B fits when…
- Edge-optimized
- Strong 8B-class quality
Mistral Large 2 fits when…
- Strong code and math
- EU data residency
- Multilingual
Consider Mistral Medium
Mistral's mid-tier balanced model, production-ready at competitive pricing.
Frequently asked
Is Ministral 8B or Mistral Large 2 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?
Both Ministral 8B and Mistral Large 2 ship a 128K-token context window.Is Ministral 8B or Mistral Large 2 better for coding?
Both Ministral 8B 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. Ministral 8B is licensed under Mistral Research License; Mistral Large 2 under Mistral Research License.When were Ministral 8B and Mistral Large 2 released?
Ministral 8B was released by Mistral on 2024-10-16. Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24.
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