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Ministral 8B vs Pixtral Large

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 · Pixtral Large specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • 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.

  • ModalitiesPixtral Large

    Pixtral Large supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Ministral 8B.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Pixtral Large edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Ministral 8B's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Ministral 8B handles text while Pixtral Large handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Pixtral Large is the newer of the two, released 1 months after Ministral 8B, 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 Pixtral Large sees more deployments in vision and ocr. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecMinistral 8BPixtral Large
ProviderMistralMistral
ReleasedOct 2024Nov 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Mistral Research License)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, vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, 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.

  • Ministral 8BPricing unavailable
  • Pixtral LargePricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

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

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.
Pick Ministral 8B if

Ministral 8B fits when…

  • Edge-optimized
  • Strong 8B-class quality
Pick Pixtral Large if

Pixtral Large fits when…

  • Strong document AI
  • Open weights
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
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 specsMinistral 8B vs Mistral Large 2Pixtral Large vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Ministral 8B or Pixtral Large 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 Pixtral Large ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Ministral 8B or Pixtral Large better for coding?
    Both Ministral 8B and Pixtral Large 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; Pixtral Large under Mistral Research License.
  • When were Ministral 8B and Pixtral Large released?
    Ministral 8B was released by Mistral on 2024-10-16. Pixtral Large was released by Mistral on 2024-11-18.
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