Codestral 2508 vs Mistral Medium 3.1
Codestral 2508 costs 2.2x less per output token than Mistral Medium 3.1 ($0.90 vs $2.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 7 benchmarks have a result for both.
Codestral 2508 or Mistral Medium 3.1: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Codestral 2508 for output tokens 2.2x cheaper ($0.90 vs $2.00 per million) and a larger context window (256K against 131K tokens).
- Shared results
- 7
- Codestral 2508 only
- 1
- Mistral Medium 3.1 only
- 67
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.1 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 9.2.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.1 has a AA Agentic Index result, 1.9.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.1 has a AIME result, 42.3%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Mistral Medium 3.1 has a MMLU Pro result, 75.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Mistral Medium 3.1
Mistral Medium 3.1 leads, 1133 against 1013.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Codestral 2508
Codestral 2508 takes 256K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Codestral 2508
Codestral 2508 $0.0008, Mistral Medium 3.1 $0.0014 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Codestral 2508 not benchmarked, Mistral Medium 3.1 not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 12.7 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: data viz: Codestral 2508 1017 against Mistral Medium 3.1 1144, 15.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Codestral 2508 $0.90 against Mistral Medium 3.1 $2.00 per million output tokens, 2.2x apart.
- Context window
- Codestral 2508 takes 256K tokens, Mistral Medium 3.1 131K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Codestral 2508 | Bars | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 1 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 6 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 7 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 20.5 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.6% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 32.4% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 10.6% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 137.8 | 210.2 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1433 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1436 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 9.2 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 1.9 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 40.6% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 58.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 4.7% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1426 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1408 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1435 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1175 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1165 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 32.5% | Not measured | Only Codestral 2508 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 42.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 90.9% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 38.3 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 38.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1408 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1412 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 75.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 62.0% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 50.7% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 36.5% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 78.2% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 68.3% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1444 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1449 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1439 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1418 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1013 | 1133 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1017 | 1100 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 968 | 1074 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1017 | 1144 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1020 | 1081 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1007 | 1120 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 993 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 997 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index29 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | Not measured | 39.8% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 42.7% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| DTBench | Not measured | 67.5% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 19.1% | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1424 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1398 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1391 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1172 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1438 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1408 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1447 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1432 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1379 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1380 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1460 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1433 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1411 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1430 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1418 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1406 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1395 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1390 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1179 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1190 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1175 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1168 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1145 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1147 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1200 | Only Mistral Medium 3.1 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Codestral 2508 costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Mistral Codestral 2508 | Mistral Medium 3.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Mistral AI | Mistral AI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | August 1, 2025 | August 13, 2025 |
| Context window | 256K | 131K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.40 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.90 | $2.00 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Codestral 2508 better than Mistral Medium 3.1 for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Codestral 2508 for output tokens 2.2x cheaper ($0.90 vs $2.00 per million) and a larger context window (256K against 131K tokens).
Which is cheaper, Codestral 2508 or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Codestral 2508 costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Mistral Medium 3.1 costs $0.40 and $2.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Codestral 2508 or Mistral Medium 3.1?
Codestral 2508, with 256K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the Codestral 2508 vs Mistral Medium 3.1 comparison based on?
7 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Codestral 2508's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Mistral Medium 3.1's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.