Pixtral 12B vs Sonar Large
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Pixtral 12B specs · Sonar Large specs- PriceSonar Large
Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not.
- Context windowPixtral 12B
Pixtral 12B accepts 128K tokens vs 127K, 1.0× 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 Sonar Large.
- OpennessPixtral 12B
Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Sonar Large is API-only.
On balance Pixtral 12B edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Sonar Large's 1. Sonar Large publishes pricing ($1.00 / 1M output tokens) while Pixtral 12B does not. Pixtral 12B accepts 128K tokens vs 127K, 1.0× 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, Pixtral 12B handles text, vision while Sonar Large handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0); Sonar Large is API-only.
Sonar Large is the newer of the two, released 2 months after Pixtral 12B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Pixtral 12B is usually picked for vision and edge deployment workloads, while Sonar Large sees more deployments in research agent and rag. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Pixtral 12B | Sonar Large |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Mistral | Perplexity |
| Released | Sep 2024 | Nov 2024 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 127K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $1.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $1.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Apache-2.0) | No |
| 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, vs $4.50
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $45.00
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $156
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.
- Pixtral 12BPricing unavailable
- Sonar Large$0.150
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
Pixtral 12B fits when…
- Apache-2.0
- Vision in 12B size
- Single-GPU
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Apache-2.0).
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Sonar Large fits when…
- Web-search grounded
- Citation-first output
- Cheap
Consider Mistral Large 2
Mistral's flagship API model, strong on code and reasoning, EU-friendly hosting.
Frequently asked
Is Pixtral 12B or Sonar Large 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 127K for Sonar Large.Is Pixtral 12B or Sonar Large better for coding?
Both Pixtral 12B and Sonar Large 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?
Pixtral 12B ships open weights (Apache-2.0). Sonar Large is API-only.When were Pixtral 12B and Sonar Large released?
Pixtral 12B was released by Mistral on 2024-09-17. Sonar Large was released by Perplexity on 2024-11-19.
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