ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Codestral 25.08 vs GLM-4.5-Air vs solar-mini

Too close to call on our weighted score (solar-mini 50, GLM-4.5-Air 48, Codestral 25.08 47). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Mistral AI

    Codestral 25.08

    Released Jul 30, 2025

    47/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.30 / $0.90
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Codestral 25.08

  2. Z.ai (Zhipu)

    GLM-4.5-Air

    Released Jul 28, 2025

    48/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.20 / $1.10
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove GLM-4.5-Air

  3. Upstage

    solar-mini

    Released Jun 12, 2024

    50/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.15 / $0.15
    • Context33K
    Full specs Remove solar-mini
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (solar-mini 50/100, GLM-4.5-Air 48/100, Codestral 25.08 47/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: solar-mini on price and GLM-4.5-Air for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest pricesolar-minisolar-mini $0.15 · GLM-4.5-Air $0.425 · Codestral 25.08 $0.45 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextGLM-4.5-AirGLM-4.5-Air 131,072 · Codestral 25.08 128,000 · solar-mini 32,768 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsCodestral 25.08: Text · GLM-4.5-Air: Text · solar-mini: Text
  • Self-hostingGLM-4.5-AirPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightCodestral 25.08GLM-4.5-Airsolar-mini
Price50%646585
Inputs & features30%353525
Context window20%24250
Overall100%47/10048/10050/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Codestral 25.08 vs GLM-4.5-Air vs solar-mini specifications side by side
SpecificationCodestral 25.08Mistral AIGLM-4.5-AirZ.ai (Zhipu)solar-miniUpstage
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)———
ECI rank———
Price per million tokens
Input$0.30$0.20$0.15 (best)
Output$0.90$1.10$0.15 (best)
Cached input$0.03$0.03—
Blended (3:1)$0.45$0.425$0.15 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Mistral APIOfficial Z.AI APIOfficial Upstage API
Limits
Context window128,000 tokens131,072 tokens (best)32,768 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens98,304 tokens (best)4,096 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoNoNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoYesNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenProprietary
API model IDcodestral-2508glm-4.5-airsolar-mini
API providers1119 (best)1
ReleasedJul 30, 2025Jul 28, 2025Jun 12, 2024
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025Sep 2024
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Codestral 25.08$4.80
  • GLM-4.5-Air$4.20
  • solar-mini$1.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Codestral 25.08, GLM-4.5-Air or solar-mini?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 2 points (solar-mini 50/100, GLM-4.5-Air 48/100, Codestral 25.08 47/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: solar-mini on price and GLM-4.5-Air for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Codestral 25.08, GLM-4.5-Air or solar-mini?

solar-mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (official Upstage API price). GLM-4.5-Air costs $0.20 input / $1.10 output per million tokens (official Z.AI API price); Codestral 25.08 costs $0.30 input / $0.90 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.15 per million tokens for solar-mini versus $0.425 for GLM-4.5-Air (2.8× as much) and $0.45 for Codestral 25.08 (3× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Codestral 25.08 has not been scored yet, GLM-4.5-Air has not been scored yet and solar-mini has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Codestral 25.08, GLM-4.5-Air and solar-mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

GLM-4.5-Air has the largest context window at 131,072 tokens, against 128,000 for Codestral 25.08 and 32,768 for solar-mini. Maximum output per response: Codestral 25.08 up to 8,192, GLM-4.5-Air up to 98,304, solar-mini up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Codestral 25.08 accepts text; GLM-4.5-Air accepts text; solar-mini accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

GLM-4.5-Air publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Codestral 25.08 and solar-mini is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Codestral 25.08 is the newest, released Jul 30, 2025. GLM-4.5-Air came out Jul 28, 2025; solar-mini came out Jun 12, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: GLM-4.5-Air Apr 2025, solar-mini Sep 2024.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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