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Mistral Nemo vs o4-mini

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

Updated

Mistral Nemo specs · o4-mini specs
Verdict by category
  • Priceo4-mini

    o4-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Mistral Nemo does not.

  • Context windowo4-mini

    o4-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× 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.

  • Modalitieso4-mini

    o4-mini supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Mistral Nemo.

  • OpennessMistral Nemo

    Mistral Nemo ships open weights (Apache-2.0); o4-mini is API-only.

On balance o4-mini edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Mistral Nemo's 1. o4-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Mistral Nemo does not. o4-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Mistral Nemo handles text while o4-mini handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Mistral Nemo ships open weights (Apache-2.0); o4-mini is API-only.

o4-mini is the newer of the two, released 9 months after Mistral Nemo, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Mistral Nemo is usually picked for edge deployment and local llm workloads, while o4-mini 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

SpecMistral Nemoo4-mini
ProviderMistralOpenAI
ReleasedJul 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$1.10 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$4.40 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,2024-06
Open weightsYes (Apache-2.0)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, vs $9.90
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $99.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $191

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 NemoPricing unavailable
  • o4-mini$0.330

Benchmarks compared

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

Mistral Nemoo4-mini
  • GPQA,81.4
Pick Mistral Nemo if

Mistral Nemo fits when…

  • Apache-2.0
  • Single-GPU fit
  • Multilingual
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Pick o4-mini if

o4-mini fits when…

  • Strong reasoning at mid-tier price
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Solid tool-use
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Nemo.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
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 Nemo vs Mistral Large 2o4-mini vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Nemo or o4-mini 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?
    o4-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Mistral Nemo.
  • Is Mistral Nemo or o4-mini better for coding?
    Both Mistral Nemo and o4-mini 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 Nemo ships open weights (Apache-2.0). o4-mini is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Nemo and o4-mini released?
    Mistral Nemo was released by Mistral on 2024-07-18. o4-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-04-16.
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