LLM·Dex
Newsletter

Mistral Medium vs SmolLM2 1.7B

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

Updated

Mistral Medium specs · SmolLM2 1.7B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceMistral Medium

    Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while SmolLM2 1.7B does not.

  • Context windowMistral Medium

    Mistral Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 8.2K, 15.6× 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.

  • OpennessSmolLM2 1.7B

    SmolLM2 1.7B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Mistral Medium is API-only.

On balance Mistral Medium edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against SmolLM2 1.7B's 1. Mistral Medium publishes pricing ($2.00 / 1M output tokens) while SmolLM2 1.7B does not. Mistral Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 8.2K, 15.6× 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. SmolLM2 1.7B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Mistral Medium is API-only.

Mistral Medium is the newer of the two, released 2 months after SmolLM2 1.7B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Mistral Medium is usually picked for customer support and chatbots workloads, while SmolLM2 1.7B 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

SpecMistral MediumSmolLM2 1.7B
ProviderMistralOther
ReleasedDec 2024Nov 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens8.2K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.40 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$2.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsNoYes (Apache-2.0)
API availableYesNo

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$4.20 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$42.00 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$72.00 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).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Mistral Medium$0.140
  • SmolLM2 1.7BPricing unavailable

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 Mistral Medium if

Mistral Medium fits when…

  • Mid-tier balance
  • EU-friendly
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 8.2K for SmolLM2 1.7B.
Pick SmolLM2 1.7B if

SmolLM2 1.7B fits when…

  • Truly tiny
  • Apache-2.0
  • Runs on phones
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
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 specsMistral Medium vs Mistral Large 2SmolLM2 1.7B vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Medium or SmolLM2 1.7B 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?
    Mistral Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 8.2K for SmolLM2 1.7B.
  • Is Mistral Medium or SmolLM2 1.7B better for coding?
    Both Mistral Medium and SmolLM2 1.7B 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?
    SmolLM2 1.7B ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Mistral Medium is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Medium and SmolLM2 1.7B released?
    Mistral Medium was released by Mistral on 2024-12-18. SmolLM2 1.7B was released by Other on 2024-11-01.
Friday digest

The week's AI launches, in your inbox.

One short email every Friday, new models, leaks, and quietly-shipped APIs you missed.