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Mistral Small vs Yi-Lightning

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

Updated

Mistral Small specs · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning is roughly 4.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $0.60 per 1M).

  • Context windowMistral Small

    Mistral Small accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× 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.

  • OpennessMistral Small

    Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

On balance Mistral Small edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Yi-Lightning's 1. Yi-Lightning is roughly 4.3× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $0.60 per 1M). Mistral Small accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× 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. Mistral Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Mistral Small is usually picked for cheapest llm and fastest llm workloads, while Yi-Lightning sees more deployments in chinese llm and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecMistral SmallYi-Lightning
ProviderMistralOther
ReleasedSep 2024Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.20 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$0.60 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
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$1.50 vs $0.630
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$15.00 vs $6.30
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$33.60 vs $21.84

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $1.50 vs $0.630 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $15.00 vs $6.30 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $33.60 vs $21.84 per month, model B comes out ahead.

Price calculator

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

  • Mistral Small$0.050
  • Yi-Lightning$0.021

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 Small if

Mistral Small fits when…

  • Apache-2.0 open-weight
  • Fast and cheap
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 4.3× cheaper than Mistral Small on output tokens.
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 Small vs Mistral Large 2Yi-Lightning vs Mistral Large 2

Frequently asked

  • Is Mistral Small or Yi-Lightning cheaper?
    Yi-Lightning is cheaper at $0.14 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $0.60 / 1M tokens for Mistral Small.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Mistral Small accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Is Mistral Small or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both Mistral Small and Yi-Lightning 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 Small ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Yi-Lightning is API-only.
  • When were Mistral Small and Yi-Lightning released?
    Mistral Small was released by Mistral on 2024-09-18. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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