Mixtral 8x22B vs Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct comes out ahead, 40 to 33 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
Mistral AIMixtral 8x22B
33/100- ECI122.0
- Price$2.00 / $6.00
- Context64K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
40/100- ECI129.0
- Price$1.40 / $5.60
- Context131K
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Make it a three-way comparison.
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is our pick
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 40/100 against Mixtral 8x22B (33). It leads on capability, price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen2.5 72B InstructCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 · Mixtral 8x22B 122.0
- Lowest priceQwen2.5 72B InstructQwen2.5 72B Instruct $2.45 · Mixtral 8x22B $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen2.5 72B InstructQwen2.5 72B Instruct 131,072 · Mixtral 8x22B 64,000 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsMixtral 8x22B: Text · Qwen2.5 72B Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
| Measure | Weight | Mixtral 8x22B | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 43 | 52 |
| Price | 25% | 27 | 31 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 12 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 33/100 | 40/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Mixtral 8x22BMistral AI | Qwen2.5 72B InstructAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 122.0 | 129.0 (best) |
| ECI rank | #139 of 148 | #128 of 148 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 34.1% | 49.2% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 8.1% |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $2.00 | $1.40 (best) |
| Output | $6.00 | $5.60 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $3.00 | $2.45 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Mistral API | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 64,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 64,000 tokens (best) | 8,192 tokens |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Open | Open |
| API model ID | open-mixtral-8x22b | qwen2-5-72b-instruct |
| API providers | 1 | 1 |
| Released | Apr 17, 2024 | Sep 19, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Apr 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.
- Mixtral 8x22B$32.00
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct$25.20
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Mixtral 8x22B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 40/100 against Mixtral 8x22B (33). It leads on capability, price and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Mixtral 8x22B or Qwen2.5 72B Instruct?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is cheaper at $1.40 input / $5.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Mixtral 8x22B costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $2.45 per million tokens for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct versus $3.00 for Mixtral 8x22B (1.2× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 (#128 of 148) and Mixtral 8x22B 122.0 (#139 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (123.8–130.7 vs 115.1–124.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 49.2%, Mixtral 8x22B 34.1%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mixtral 8x22B and Qwen2.5 72B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct has the largest context window at 131,072 tokens, against 64,000 for Mixtral 8x22B. Maximum output per response: Mixtral 8x22B up to 64,000, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct up to 8,192 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Mixtral 8x22B accepts text; Qwen2.5 72B Instruct accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Yes, both publish their weights, so you can self-host them.
Which is newer?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct is the newest, released Sep 19, 2024. Mixtral 8x22B came out Apr 17, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Mixtral 8x22B Apr 2024, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 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.
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