AI Models · Open-Source vs Paid

Granite 4.2 8B Open vs Mistral Large Paid

Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.

Mistral Large — full profile ›

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

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

Granite 4.2 8BOpenIBM

$0.06 /M input
$0.25 /M outputNo per-token fees if you self-host

TypeOpen-weight

Context window131K tokens

MultimodalNo

Self-hostYes

Mistral LargePaidMistral AI

$2 /M input
$6 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)

TypeProprietary

Context window128K tokens

MultimodalNo

Self-hostNo

Choose Granite 4.2 8B 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 Mistral Large if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large specs

Spec	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large	Winner
Maker	IBM	Mistral AI	–
Type	Open-weight	Proprietary	Granite 4.2 8B
Context window	131K tokens	128K tokens	Granite 4.2 8B
Input price	$0.06/M · free self-host	$2/M	Granite 4.2 8B
Output price	$0.25/M · free self-host	$6/M	Granite 4.2 8B
Vision / multimodal	No	No	–
Tool / function calling	Yes	Yes	= Tie
Self-hostable	Yes	No (API only)	Granite 4.2 8B
License	Apache 2.0	Proprietary	Granite 4.2 8B

Price gap & when to choose each

24×cheaper per output token

Granite 4.2 8B is ~24× cheaper than Mistral Large on output tokens ($0.25 vs $6 per M tokens).

Choose Granite 4.2 8B if…

You want to self-host or run on your cloud
You need the longer 131K context window
You prioritize data privacy & control
You want the lowest operating costs
You are building open or reproducible AI

Choose Mistral Large if…

You want frontier performance through a managed API
You value reliability & ecosystem
You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

Capability	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large
Open weights (downloadable)	✓	✗
Self-hostable	✓	✗
Runs fully offline	✓	✗
Vision / multimodal	✗	✗
Tool / function calling	✓	✓
1M+ context window	✗	✗

Benchmarks: Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large

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

Granite 4.2 8B delivers 48× more intelligence per dollar.

Granite 4.2 8B

Mistral Large

Intelligence index

11.8

6.8

Coding index

22.4

–

GPQA

63.1%

47.2%

Humanity's Last Exam

9.7%

2.9%

Long Context Reasoning

45%

SciCode

31.5%

–

τ-Bench Banking

7.6%

–

Terminal-Bench

18.4%

–

Math index

–

MMLU-Pro

–

68.3%

LiveCodeBench

–

26.7%

MATH-500

–

71.4%

AIME

–

9.3%

AIME 2025

–

IFBench

–

31.6%

τ²-Bench

–

33%

Speed

95.3 tok/s

0 tok/s

Latency

0.25s

Intelligence per $

110.3

2.3

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Granite 4.2 8B and Mistral Large score

🏆 Best value & openness: Granite 4.2 8B (4.4 vs 2.7 / 5)

Criterion	Granite 4.2 8B	Mistral Large
Cost-efficiency	5.0	4.0
Context window	3.5	3.5
Openness	5.0	1.5
Self-hosting	5.0	1.0
Multimodality	3.5	3.5

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

Granite 4.2 8B Open

IBM · Open-weight

Granite 4.2 8B is a dense reasoning model from IBM. It is suited for mathematics, code generation, multilingual dialogue, and agentic workflows that need multi-step reasoning. It supports full, low-effort,...

Mistral Large Paid

Mistral AI · Proprietary

This is Mistral AI's flagship model, Mistral Large 2 (version `mistral-large-2407`). It's a proprietary weights-available model and excels at reasoning, code, JSON, chat, and more. Read the launch announcement [here](https://mistral.ai/news

Other models in these families

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

Other variants tracked

Granite 4.0 Micro

Frequently asked questions

Is Granite 4.2 8B as good as Mistral Large?

Granite 4.2 8B is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but Mistral Large 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 Granite 4.2 8B locally?

Yes. Granite 4.2 8B has open weights, so you can self-host it on your own GPUs or run it via a low-cost API. Mistral Large is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.

How much cheaper is Granite 4.2 8B?

Granite 4.2 8B costs $0.25/M output vs $6/M for Mistral Large — roughly 24x cheaper via API, and free if you self-host.

Granite 4.2 8B vs Mistral Large — which should I pick in 2026?

Choose Granite 4.2 8B 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 Mistral Large if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

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