Mistral Large 2 vs Phi-3.5 Medium
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-3.5 Medium does not.
- Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
- BenchmarksMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 84.0 vs 78.9.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Mistral Large 2 edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Phi-3.5 Medium's 0. Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-3.5 Medium does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.
Mistral Large 2 leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 84.0 vs 78.9. 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.
Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Mistral Large 2 is usually picked for coding llm and multilingual workloads, while Phi-3.5 Medium sees more deployments in on device and edge deployment. 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 | Phi-3.5 Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Microsoft |
| Released | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $2.00 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Output · 1M | $6.00 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2024-04 | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Mistral Research License) | Yes (MIT) |
| 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 ,
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$150 vs ,
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$336 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).
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
- Phi-3.5 MediumPricing unavailable
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- MMLU84.078.9
- HumanEval92.0
Mistral Large 2 fits when…
- Strong code and math
- EU data residency
- Multilingual
Phi-3.5 Medium fits when…
- MIT license
- 128k context
- Strong reasoning at 14B
Consider Mistral Medium
Mistral's mid-tier balanced model, production-ready at competitive pricing.
Frequently asked
Is Mistral Large 2 or Phi-3.5 Medium 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 Mistral Large 2 and Phi-3.5 Medium ship a 128K-token context window.Is Mistral Large 2 or Phi-3.5 Medium better for coding?
Both Mistral Large 2 and Phi-3.5 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?
Both ship with open weights. Mistral Large 2 is licensed under Mistral Research License; Phi-3.5 Medium under MIT.When were Mistral Large 2 and Phi-3.5 Medium released?
Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24. Phi-3.5 Medium was released by Microsoft on 2024-08-20.
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