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Mistral AI vs DeepSeek
Two open-weight labs with opposite trade-offs. DeepSeek offers 1M context and half-price off-peak hours; Mistral offers EU or US processing and cloud listings.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Mistral AI vs DeepSeek: key differences
Both release open weights, under different terms: DeepSeek uses MIT, and Mistral's Large 3 ships under Apache 2.0. DeepSeek's API serves V4.1 Flash at $0.30 in and $1.20 out at peak, with image understanding, and V4 Pro at $1.32 in and $3.96 out, both with 1M context and 384K max output. Off-peak hours cost exactly half, and cache hits cost a few cents per million or less. Mistral's context stops at 256K. Its Small 4 at $0.15 in and $0.60 out is cheaper than V4.1 Flash at peak, Large 3 costs $0.50 in and $1.50 out, and Medium 3.5 at $1.50 in and $7.50 out targets coding with 77.6% on SWE-Bench Verified by Mistral's count.
Data location often decides it. DeepSeek's hosted API stores data in China, a hard stop for many enterprises, though most other hosts serve its open weights. Mistral offers EU and US regional endpoints, a Priority Tier with uptime SLAs, and listings on Azure, Bedrock, Vertex AI, Snowflake Cortex and watsonx. DeepSeek's low, high and max reasoning effort settings give a direct lever on output tokens, and V4 Pro runs around 35 tokens per second. Both labs reprice or retire models often, so cost models need regular checks. Mistral adds Codestral, OCR and Voxtral, while DeepSeek keeps a two-model API.
What Mistral AI and DeepSeek do
Mistral AI
Mistral AI is a Paris lab that sells its models through La Plateforme, its own API, and releases most of them as open weights. It consolidated the lineup in 2026. Mistral Medium 3.5, released April 28, is a dense 128B model that merges instruction following, reasoning and coding into one set of weights, and it replaced both Devstral 2 and the Magistral reasoning models. It costs $1.50 in and $7.50 out per million tokens and scores 77.6% on SWE-Bench Verified by Mistral's count. Mistral Small 4, a 119B mixture-of-experts model with 6.5B active, costs $0.15 in and $0.60 out. Mistral Large 3, a 675B MoE under Apache 2.0, runs $0.50 in and $1.50 out. All three carry a 256K context window.
Example models: Mistral Medium 3.5, Mistral Small 4
Full Mistral AI profileDeepSeek
DeepSeek is the Chinese lab whose open-weight models reset price expectations for the whole market. Its API now serves two models, both with 1M context and 384K max output. V4.1 Flash shipped September 10, 2026 with built-in image understanding at $0.30 in and $1.20 out at peak. V4 Pro, generally available since August 13, costs $1.32 in and $3.96 out at peak. Cache hits cost a few cents per million or less, and the weights ship on Hugging Face under an MIT license.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro
Full DeepSeek profileShould you choose Mistral AI or DeepSeek?
Mistral AI
Choose Mistral AI for
- Enterprises that need EU or US data processing
- Buying through existing cloud marketplaces
- Code completion on Codestral
DeepSeek
Choose DeepSeek for
- Contexts up to 1M with 384K output
- Batch work scheduled into half-price off-peak hours
- Agents that reread long prefixes on cheap cache hits
Mistral AI vs DeepSeek at a glance
| Attribute | Mistral AI | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, plus closed Codestral | Open weights (MIT) |
| Flagship models | Mistral Medium 3.5, Small 4, Large 3 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, V4 Pro |
| Speed | Unknown | ~35 tok/s on V4 Pro |
| Price | $0.15–$1.50 in, $0.60–$7.50 out per 1M | Off-peak hours at half price |
| Customization | Forge (enterprise); fine-tuning API deprecated | Open weights to fine-tune |
| Deployment | API, Azure, Bedrock, Vertex, self-host | First-party API, Hugging Face weights |
| Long context | 256K | 1M, 384K max output |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Mistral AI and DeepSeek?
Two open-weight labs with opposite trade-offs. DeepSeek offers 1M context and half-price off-peak hours; Mistral offers EU or US processing and cloud listings.
When should I choose Mistral AI over DeepSeek?
Enterprises that need EU or US data processing; Buying through existing cloud marketplaces; Code completion on Codestral.
When should I choose DeepSeek over Mistral AI?
Contexts up to 1M with 384K output; Batch work scheduled into half-price off-peak hours; Agents that reread long prefixes on cheap cache hits.
Is Mistral AI or DeepSeek cheaper?
Mistral AI: $0.15–$1.50 in, $0.60–$7.50 out per 1M. DeepSeek: Off-peak hours at half price. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Mistral AI or DeepSeek?
Mistral AI: 256K. DeepSeek: 1M, 384K max output.
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