Mistral Large 2 vs Qwen3-72B
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 · Qwen3-72B specs- PriceMistral Large 2
Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Qwen3-72B does not.
- Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
- BenchmarksTie
Across 1 shared benchmarks the two models split wins evenly. Look at task-specific scores rather than the average.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Mistral Large 2 edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Qwen3-72B's 0. Mistral Large 2 publishes pricing ($6.00 / 1M output tokens) while Qwen3-72B does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.
Across 1 shared benchmarks the two models split wins evenly. Look at task-specific scores rather than the average. 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.
Qwen3-72B 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 Qwen3-72B sees more deployments in open source llm and commercial use llm. 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 | Qwen3-72B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Alibaba |
| Released | Jul 2024 | Apr 2025 |
| 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 (Apache-2.0) |
| 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
- Qwen3-72BPricing unavailable
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- MMLU84.084.0
- HumanEval92.0
Mistral Large 2 fits when…
- Strong code and math
- EU data residency
- Multilingual
Qwen3-72B fits when…
- Apache-2.0 license
- Strongest open-weight on Chinese
- Strong multilingual coverage
Consider Mistral Medium
Mistral's mid-tier balanced model, production-ready at competitive pricing.
Frequently asked
Is Mistral Large 2 or Qwen3-72B 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 Qwen3-72B ship a 128K-token context window.Is Mistral Large 2 or Qwen3-72B better for coding?
Both Mistral Large 2 and Qwen3-72B 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; Qwen3-72B under Apache-2.0.When were Mistral Large 2 and Qwen3-72B released?
Mistral Large 2 was released by Mistral on 2024-07-24. Qwen3-72B was released by Alibaba on 2025-04-29.
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