Codestral vs Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) vs Vision Small
Vision Small comes out ahead, 84 to 29 and 15 on our weighted score.
Mistral AICodestral
29/100- ECI—
- Price$0.30 / $0.90
- Context256K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
15/100- ECI—
- Price$0.50 / $1.40
- Context8K
- Our pick
VisparkVision Small
84/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context1M
Vision Small is our pick
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Codestral (29) and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (15). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. 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 priceCodestralCodestral $0.45 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) $0.725 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Vision Small unpriced
- Longest contextVision SmallVision Small 1,000,000 · Codestral 256,000 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
- Widest inputsVision SmallCodestral: Text · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text · Vision Small: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video
- Self-hostingCodestralPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Codestral | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) | Vision Small |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 25 | 25 | 100 |
| Context window | 40% | 36 | 0 | 60 |
| Overall | 100% | 29/100 | 15/100 | 84/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | CodestralMistral AI | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen) | Vision SmallVispark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.30 (best) | $0.50 | — |
| Output | $0.90 (best) | $1.40 | — |
| Cached input | $0.03 | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.45 (best) | $0.725 | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Official Alibaba API | — |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 256,000 tokens | 8,192 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 512 tokens | 65,536 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | Yes |
| Audio | No | No | Yes |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | No | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | codestral-latest | qwen-plus-character-ja | — |
| API providers | 3 (best) | 1 | — |
| Released | May 29, 2024 | Jan 2024 | May 15, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Oct 2024 | Apr 2024 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Codestral$4.80
- Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
- Vision Small—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Codestral, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) or Vision Small?
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Codestral (29) and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (15). It leads on inputs & features and context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Codestral, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) or Vision Small?
Codestral is cheaper at $0.30 input / $0.90 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) costs $0.50 input / $1.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.45 per million tokens for Codestral versus $0.725 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (1.6× as much). Vision Small has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Codestral has not been scored yet, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) has not been scored yet and Vision Small has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Codestral, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) and Vision Small 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?
Vision Small has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 256,000 for Codestral and 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: Codestral up to 4,096, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512, Vision Small up to 65,536 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Codestral accepts text; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text; Vision Small accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video. Vision Small handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Codestral publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) and Vision Small is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Codestral is the newest, released May 29, 2024. Vision Small came out May 15, 2024; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) came out Jan 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Codestral Oct 2024, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) Apr 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 Oct 4, 2026.
