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Phi-4 vs Pixtral 12B

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

Updated

Phi-4 specs · Pixtral 12B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • Context windowPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B 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.

  • ModalitiesPixtral 12B

    Pixtral 12B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Phi-4.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Pixtral 12B edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Phi-4's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. Pixtral 12B 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. They differ in modality coverage, Phi-4 handles text while Pixtral 12B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Phi-4 is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Pixtral 12B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Phi-4 is usually picked for on device and edge deployment workloads, while Pixtral 12B sees more deployments in vision 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

SpecPhi-4Pixtral 12B
ProviderMicrosoftMistral
ReleasedDec 2024Sep 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window16K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (MIT)Yes (Apache-2.0)
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 ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, 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.

  • Phi-4Pricing unavailable
  • Pixtral 12BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

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

Phi-4Pixtral 12B
  • MMLU84.8
  • HumanEval82.6
Pick Phi-4 if

Phi-4 fits when…

  • Exceptional quality at 14B parameters
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Strong on math
Pick Pixtral 12B if

Pixtral 12B fits when…

  • Apache-2.0
  • Vision in 12B size
  • Single-GPU
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider Phi-3.5 Medium

14B Phi-3.5, predecessor to Phi-4 with strong benchmark efficiency for its size.

See Phi-3.5 Medium specsPhi-4 vs Phi-3.5 MediumPixtral 12B vs Phi-3.5 Medium

Frequently asked

  • Is Phi-4 or Pixtral 12B 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?
    Pixtral 12B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
  • Is Phi-4 or Pixtral 12B better for coding?
    Both Phi-4 and Pixtral 12B 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. Phi-4 is licensed under MIT; Pixtral 12B under Apache-2.0.
  • When were Phi-4 and Pixtral 12B released?
    Phi-4 was released by Microsoft on 2024-12-12. Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17.
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