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Ministral 8B vs Yi-Lightning

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 · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Ministral 8B does not.

  • Context windowMinistral 8B

    Ministral 8B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× 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.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessMinistral 8B

    Ministral 8B ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

On balance Ministral 8B edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Yi-Lightning's 1. Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Ministral 8B does not. Ministral 8B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Ministral 8B ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Ministral 8B is usually picked for edge deployment and on device workloads, while Yi-Lightning sees more deployments in chinese llm and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecMinistral 8BYi-Lightning
ProviderMistralOther
ReleasedOct 2024Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Mistral Research License)No
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 $0.630
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $6.30
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $21.84

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
  • Yi-Lightning$0.021

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
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Mistral Research License).
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
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 2Yi-Lightning vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Ministral 8B or Yi-Lightning 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?
    Ministral 8B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Is Ministral 8B or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both Ministral 8B and Yi-Lightning 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?
    Ministral 8B ships open weights (Mistral Research License). Yi-Lightning is API-only.
  • When were Ministral 8B and Yi-Lightning released?
    Ministral 8B was released by Mistral on 2024-10-16. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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