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Mistral AI vs Relace
Relace sells utility models for coding agents, like a 10,000 tok/s apply model and fast repo search. Mistral sells the general and code models agents run on.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Mistral AI vs Relace: key differences
Relace trains small, fast models that act as tools for coding agents. Its relace-apply-3 merges a frontier model's lazy edit snippet into the original file at about 10,000 tokens per second, with 128K tokens of input and output, and Relace says it runs over 3x faster and cheaper than a full rewrite. Its agentic search explores large codebases in parallel and answers in seconds, and a context compaction model runs at 50,000 tokens per second. Mistral covers the main model. Medium 3.5 costs $1.50 in and $7.50 out per million tokens, merges reasoning and coding into one set of weights, and carries 256K context. Codestral offers fill-in-the-middle completion at $0.30 in and $0.90 out.
Both offer ways to keep code in-house. Relace deploys self-hosted with guided onboarding, Medium 3.5 self-hosts on as few as four GPUs, and Mistral's API has EU or US regional endpoints. Relace returns an error past 128K tokens, so very large files need a fallback, and it has no general-purpose model serving. Mistral cannot match Relace's speed on the apply step. The two stack rather than compete: a Mistral model plans and writes edits, then Relace applies them and handles retrieval. Relace also offers source control with codebase retrieval built in. Mistral wins on breadth, with OCR, speech, an Agents API and listings on Azure, Bedrock and Vertex AI.
What Mistral AI and Relace 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 profileRelace
Relace trains small, fast models that act as tools for coding agents. Its best-known product is Instant Apply: a frontier model writes a lazy edit snippet, and relace-apply-3 merges it into the original file at about 10,000 tokens per second with 128K tokens of input and output. Relace says this runs over 3x faster and cheaper than having the big model rewrite the file. It exposes both a REST endpoint and an OpenAI-compatible one, and the model is also listed on OpenRouter.
Example models: relace-apply-3, Relace agentic search
Full Relace profileShould you choose Mistral AI or Relace?
Mistral AI
Choose Mistral AI for
- The main reasoning model in a coding agent
- Self-hosted general models
- Non-code tasks like OCR and speech
Relace
Choose Relace for
- Instant apply inside app builders
- Fast search across large repos
- Context compaction for long agent runs
Mistral AI vs Relace at a glance
| Attribute | Mistral AI | Relace |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, plus closed Codestral | Specialist models |
| Flagship models | Mistral Medium 3.5, Small 4, Large 3 | relace-apply-3, agentic search |
| Speed | Unknown | ~10,000 tok/s apply |
| Price | $0.15–$1.50 in, $0.60–$7.50 out per 1M | 3x+ cheaper than full rewrites |
| Customization | Forge (enterprise); fine-tuning API deprecated | Unknown |
| Deployment | API, Azure, Bedrock, Vertex, self-host | Hosted API or self-hosted |
| Long context | 256K | 128K max |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Mistral AI and Relace?
Relace sells utility models for coding agents, like a 10,000 tok/s apply model and fast repo search. Mistral sells the general and code models agents run on.
When should I choose Mistral AI over Relace?
The main reasoning model in a coding agent; Self-hosted general models; Non-code tasks like OCR and speech.
When should I choose Relace over Mistral AI?
Instant apply inside app builders; Fast search across large repos; Context compaction for long agent runs.
Is Mistral AI or Relace cheaper?
Mistral AI: $0.15–$1.50 in, $0.60–$7.50 out per 1M. Relace: 3x+ cheaper than full rewrites. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Mistral AI or Relace?
Mistral AI: 256K. Relace: 128K max.
Related comparisons
Running long-horizon agents?
If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious. Our inference stack treats a long-horizon trace as the primary workload, so speed, cost, and accuracy hold up deep into the trace.