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Mistral Large 2 vs Mistral Medium

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

Updated

Mistral Large 2 specs · Mistral Medium specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceMistral Medium

    Mistral Medium is roughly 3.0× cheaper on output tokens ($2.00 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.

  • OpennessMistral Large 2

    Mistral Large 2 ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between Mistral Large 2 and Mistral Medium: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Mistral Medium is roughly 3.0× cheaper on output tokens ($2.00 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. Mistral Large 2 ships open weights (Mistral Research License); Mistral Medium is API-only.

Mistral Medium 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. Mistral Large 2 is usually picked for coding llm and multilingual workloads, while Mistral Medium sees more deployments in customer support and chatbots. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecMistral Large 2Mistral Medium
ProviderMistralMistral
ReleasedJul 2024Dec 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$2.00 / 1M tokens$0.40 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$6.00 / 1M tokens$2.00 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2024-04,
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$15.00 vs $4.20
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$150 vs $42.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$336 vs $72.00

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $15.00 vs $4.20 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $150 vs $42.00 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $336 vs $72.00 per month, model B 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.

  • Mistral Large 2$0.500
  • Mistral Medium$0.140

Benchmarks compared

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

Mistral Large 2Mistral Medium
  • MMLU84.0
  • HumanEval92.0
Pick Mistral Large 2 if

Mistral Large 2 fits when…

  • Strong code and math
  • EU data residency
  • Multilingual
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Mistral Research License).
Pick Mistral Medium if

Mistral Medium fits when…

  • Mid-tier balance
  • EU-friendly
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 3.0× cheaper than Mistral Large 2 on output tokens.
Don't want either?

Consider Mistral Small

Mistral's small-tier API model, fast and cheap for routing and high-volume tasks.

See Mistral Small specsMistral Large 2 vs Mistral SmallMistral Medium vs Mistral Small

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Large 2 or Mistral Medium cheaper?
    Mistral Medium is cheaper at $2.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $6.00 / 1M tokens for Mistral Large 2.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both Mistral Large 2 and Mistral Medium ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Mistral Large 2 or Mistral Medium better for coding?
    Both Mistral Large 2 and Mistral Medium 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?
    Mistral Large 2 ships open weights (Mistral Research License). Mistral Medium is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Large 2 and Mistral Medium released?
    Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24. Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18.
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