AI Models · Open-Source vs Paid

GPT-5.2 Chat Paid vs Mistral Medium 3.5 Open

GPT-5.2 Chat vs Mistral Medium 3.5 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.

GPT-5.2 Chat — full profile ›

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.

GPT-5.2 ChatPaidOpenAI
$1.75 /M input
$14 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window128K tokens
MultimodalYes
Self-hostNo
Mistral Medium 3.5OpenMistral AI
$1.5 /M input
$7.5 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host
TypeOpen-weight
Context window262K tokens
MultimodalYes
Self-hostYes
Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose GPT-5.2 Chat if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

GPT-5.2 Chat vs Mistral Medium 3.5 specs

SpecGPT-5.2 ChatMistral Medium 3.5Winner
MakerOpenAIMistral AI–
TypeProprietaryOpen-weightMistral Medium 3.5
Context window128K tokens262K tokensMistral Medium 3.5
Input price$1.75/M$1.5/M · free self-hostMistral Medium 3.5
Output price$14/M$7.5/M · free self-hostMistral Medium 3.5
Vision / multimodalYesYes= Tie
Tool / function callingYesYes= Tie
Self-hostableNo (API only)YesMistral Medium 3.5
LicenseProprietaryApache 2.0Mistral Medium 3.5

Price gap & when to choose each

1.9×cheaper per output token

Mistral Medium 3.5 is ~1.9× cheaper than GPT-5.2 Chat on output tokens ($7.5 vs $14 per M tokens).

Choose GPT-5.2 Chat if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure
Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 if…
  • You want to self-host or run on your cloud
  • You need the longer 262K context window
  • You prioritize data privacy & control
  • You want the lowest operating costs
  • You are building open or reproducible AI

Feature comparison

CapabilityGPT-5.2 ChatMistral Medium 3.5
Open weights (downloadable)✗✓
Self-hostable✗✓
Runs fully offline✗✓
Vision / multimodal✓✓
Tool / function calling✓✓
1M+ context window✗✗

Benchmarks: GPT-5.2 Chat vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).

GPT-5.2 Chat
Mistral Medium 3.5
Intelligence index
17
14.9
Math index
51
–
GPQA
71.2%
74.8%
MMLU-Pro
81.4%
–
Humanity's Last Exam
8%
13.8%
Long Context Reasoning
45.7%
69.3%
LiveCodeBench
66.9%
–
AIME 2025
51%
–
IFBench
47.4%
68.8%
τ²-Bench
46.5%
94.2%
τ-Bench Banking
11.1%
15.1%
Terminal-Bench Hard
31.8%
33.3%
Coding index
–
46.9
SciCode
–
40.2%
Terminal-Bench
–
50.6%
Speed
0 tok/s
142.2 tok/s
Latency
0s
0.74s
Intelligence per $
3.5
5

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How GPT-5.2 Chat and Mistral Medium 3.5 score

🏆 Best value & openness: Mistral Medium 3.5 (4.6 vs 2.9 / 5)
CriterionGPT-5.2 ChatMistral Medium 3.5
Cost-efficiency3.54.0
Context window3.54.0
Openness1.55.0
Self-hosting1.05.0
Multimodality5.05.0

Scores come from live data — output price (cost), context length, open vs closed weights (openness & self-hosting) and vision/tool support (multimodality). Raw task quality isn't scored here; it depends on your benchmark — see the verdict.

What each model is

GPT-5.2 Chat Paid

OpenAI · Proprietary

GPT-5.2 Chat (AKA Instant) is the fast, lightweight member of the 5.2 family, optimized for low-latency chat while retaining strong general intelligence. It uses adaptive reasoning to selectively “think” on...

Mistral Medium 3.5 Open

Mistral AI · Open-weight

Mistral Medium 3.5 is a dense 128B instruction-following model from Mistral AI. It supports text and image inputs with text output, and is designed for agentic workflows, coding, and complex...

Other models in these families

These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.

Other variants tracked
Mistral Medium 3.5 (batch)Mistral Small 4Mistral Small 4 (batch)Mistral Medium 3.1Mistral Medium 3.1 (batch)Mistral Large 3 2512Mistral Large 3 2512 (batch)Devstral 2 2512Mistral Medium 3Mistral Small 3.1 24BMistral Small 3.2 24BMistral LargeMistral Large 2407Mistral Small 3SabaMinistral 3 14B 2512Mixtral 8x22B InstructMinistral 3 8B 2512Ministral 3 8B 2512 (batch)Ministral 3 3B 2512UncensoredCodestral 2508Codestral 2508 (batch)Voxtral Small 24B 2507Mistral Nemo

Frequently asked questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 as good as GPT-5.2 Chat?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but GPT-5.2 Chat may still lead on the hardest reasoning and agentic work. The gap keeps narrowing — benchmark both on your actual use case before deciding.

Can I run Mistral Medium 3.5 locally?

Yes. Mistral Medium 3.5 has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. GPT-5.2 Chat is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.

How much cheaper is Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $7.5/M output vs $14/M for GPT-5.2 Chat — roughly 2x cheaper via API, and free if you self-host.

GPT-5.2 Chat vs Mistral Medium 3.5 — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 if you want to self-host, keep your data private and skip per-token fees — it's open-weight and runs on your own hardware. Choose GPT-5.2 Chat if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

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