Codestral vs Pixtral Large
Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026
Codestral
MistralMistral's dedicated coding model. Open-weight and highly optimized for code generation and completion.
| Input | $0.300/M |
| Output | $0.900/M |
| Context | 128K tokens |
| Best For | Code completion, code generation, IDE integration |
| Benchmark | 60/100 |
Pixtral Large
MistralMistral's multimodal model with strong image understanding. Competitive with GPT-4o Vision.
| Input | $2.00/M |
| Output | $6.00/M |
| Context | 128K tokens |
| Best For | Image analysis, multimodal applications, visual QA |
Cost Comparison by Scenario
Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.
| Scenario | Codestral | Pixtral Large | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Script (1K lines) | $0.04 | $0.25 | Codestral saves $0.21 (85%) |
| Medium Feature (10K lines) | $0.29 | $1.90 | Codestral saves $1.62 (85%) |
| Large Project (50K lines) | $1.43 | $9.50 | Codestral saves $8.07 (85%) |
| Code Review (5K lines) | $0.07 | $0.50 | Codestral saves $0.42 (85%) |
Verdict
Codestral wins on both price and performance — $0.300/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.
For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.
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