Mistral Large 2 vs o3
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 · o3 specs- PriceMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 is roughly 1.3× cheaper on output tokens ($6.00 vs $8.00 per 1M).
- Context windowo3
o3 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.
- Benchmarkso3
o3 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 95.0 vs 92.0.
- Modalitieso3
o3 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Mistral Large 2.
- OpennessMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 ships open weights (Mistral Research License); o3 is API-only.
On balance o3 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Mistral Large 2's 2. Mistral Large 2 is roughly 1.3× cheaper on output tokens ($6.00 vs $8.00 per 1M). o3 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.
o3 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 95.0 vs 92.0. They differ in modality coverage, Mistral Large 2 handles text while o3 handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Mistral Large 2 ships open weights (Mistral Research License); o3 is API-only.
o3 is the newer of the two, released 9 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 o3 sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Mistral Large 2 | o3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | OpenAI |
| Released | Jul 2024 | Apr 2025 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 200K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $2.00 / 1M tokens | $2.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | $6.00 / 1M tokens | $8.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-04 | 2024-06 |
| Open weights | Yes (Mistral Research License) | No |
| 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$15.00 vs $18.00
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$150 vs $180
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$336 vs $348
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $15.00 vs $18.00 per month, model A comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $150 vs $180 per month, model A comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $336 vs $348 per month, model A comes out ahead.
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
- o3$0.600
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- MMLU84.0
- HumanEval92.095.0
- GPQA,87.7
Mistral Large 2 fits when…
- Strong code and math
- EU data residency
- Multilingual
- Cost-sensitive workloads, 1.3× cheaper than o3 on output tokens.
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Mistral Research License).
o3 fits when…
- Industry-leading reasoning depth at launch
- Strong on math, science, and abstract puzzles
- Tool-use during reasoning loops
- Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Large 2.
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Consider Mistral Medium
Mistral's mid-tier balanced model, production-ready at competitive pricing.
Frequently asked
Is Mistral Large 2 or o3 cheaper?
Mistral Large 2 is cheaper at $6.00 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $8.00 / 1M tokens for o3.Which has the larger context window?
o3 accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Large 2.Is Mistral Large 2 or o3 better for coding?
Both Mistral Large 2 and o3 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). o3 is API-only.When were Mistral Large 2 and o3 released?
Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24. o3 was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16.
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