AI Models · Open-Source vs Paid

Mistral Medium 3.5 Open vs AMNova Micro 1.0 Paid

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Nova Micro 1.0 compared — price per token, context window, multimodality, openness and which to choose. Can the open-source model replace the paid one? Full 2026 breakdown.

Prices & specs refreshed from live data · olud.ai

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

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
AMNova Micro 1.0PaidAmazon
$0.04 /M input
$0.14 /M outputManaged API (no infra to run)
TypeProprietary
Context window128K tokens
MultimodalNo
Self-hostNo
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 Nova Micro 1.0 if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Nova Micro 1.0 specs

SpecMistral Medium 3.5Nova Micro 1.0Winner
MakerMistral AIAmazon
TypeOpen-weightProprietaryMistral Medium 3.5
Context window262K tokens128K tokensMistral Medium 3.5
Input price$1.5/M · free self-host$0.04/MAMNova Micro 1.0
Output price$7.5/M · free self-host$0.14/MAMNova Micro 1.0
Vision / multimodalYesNoMistral Medium 3.5
Tool / function callingYesYes= Tie
Self-hostableYesNo (API only)Mistral Medium 3.5
LicenseApache 2.0ProprietaryMistral Medium 3.5

Price gap & when to choose each

54×cheaper per output token

Nova Micro 1.0 is ~54× cheaper than Mistral Medium 3.5 on output tokens ($0.14 vs $7.5 per M tokens).

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 are building open or reproducible AI
AMChoose Nova Micro 1.0 if…
  • You want frontier performance through a managed API
  • You want the lower output price
  • You value reliability & ecosystem
  • You don't want to manage infrastructure

Feature comparison

CapabilityMistral Medium 3.5Nova Micro 1.0
Open weights (downloadable)
Self-hostable
Runs fully offline
Vision / multimodal
Tool / function calling
1M+ context window

Benchmarks: Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Nova Micro 1.0

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

Mistral Medium 3.5
Nova Micro 1.0
Intelligence index
14.9
Coding index
46.9
GPQA
74.8%
Humanity's Last Exam
13.8%
Long Context Reasoning
69.3%
SciCode
40.2%
IFBench
68.8%
τ²-Bench
94.2%
τ-Bench Banking
15.1%
Terminal-Bench
50.6%
Terminal-Bench Hard
33.3%
Speed
142.2 tok/s
Latency
0.74s
Intelligence per $
5

Benchmark data by Artificial Analysis.

How Mistral Medium 3.5 and Nova Micro 1.0 score

🏆 Best value & openness: Mistral Medium 3.5 (4.6 vs 2.9 / 5)
CriterionMistral Medium 3.5Nova Micro 1.0
Cost-efficiency4.05.0
Context window4.03.5
Openness5.01.5
Self-hosting5.01.0
Multimodality5.03.5

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

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...

Nova Micro 1.0 Paid

Amazon · Proprietary

Amazon Nova Micro 1.0 is a text-only model that delivers the lowest latency responses in the Amazon Nova family of models at a very low cost. With a context length...

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 Nova Micro 1.0?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is open-weight and competitive on many tasks, but Nova Micro 1.0 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. Nova Micro 1.0 is API-only and cannot be self-hosted.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Nova Micro 1.0 — 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 Nova Micro 1.0 if you want frontier capability through a managed API with zero infrastructure to run.

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