MiniMax M3 Open vs 
Mistral Large 3 2512 Open
MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Full 2026 breakdown.
Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai
Open-model prices = cheapest provider via OpenRouter; official maker rates may be higher.
MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512 specs
| Spec | MiniMax M3 | Mistral Large 3 2512 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | MiniMax | Mistral AI |
| Type | Open-weight | Open-weight |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 262K tokens |
| Input price | $0.3/M · free self-host | $0.5/M · free self-host |
| Output price | $1.2/M · free self-host | $1.5/M · free self-host |
| Vision / multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Tool / function calling | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | Apache 2.0 |
Feature comparison
| Capability | MiniMax M3 | Mistral Large 3 2512 |
|---|---|---|
| Open weights (downloadable) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✓ |
| Runs fully offline | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision / multimodal | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tool / function calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| 1M+ context window | ✓ | ✗ |
Benchmarks: MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512
Independent benchmark scores measured by Artificial Analysis. Higher is better (except latency).
Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.
How MiniMax M3 and Mistral Large 3 2512 score
| Criterion | MiniMax M3 | Mistral Large 3 2512 |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-efficiency | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Context window | 5.0 | 4.0 |
| Openness | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Self-hosting | 5.0 | 5.0 |
| Multimodality | 5.0 | 5.0 |
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
MiniMax M3 Open
MiniMax-M3 is a multimodal foundation model from MiniMax. It supports text, image, and video inputs with text output, a 1M-token context window, and is suited for long-horizon agentic work, coding,...
Mistral Large 3 2512 Open
Mistral Large 3 2512 is Mistral’s most capable model to date, featuring a sparse mixture-of-experts architecture with 41B active parameters (675B total), and released under the Apache 2.0 license.
Other models in these families
These variants are tracked but not compared here — one page per family keeps the comparison readable.
Frequently asked questions
MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512 — which is cheaper?
MiniMax M3 is cheaper on output ($1.2/M vs $1.5/M).
Which has the larger context window?
MiniMax M3 offers the larger context window (1M tokens).
MiniMax M3 vs Mistral Large 3 2512 — which should I pick in 2026?
Choose MiniMax M3 for the lower output price ($1.2/M vs $1.5/M). It also gives you the larger 1M context window.
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