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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) vs Codestral

Codestral comes out ahead, 48 to 36 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)

    Released Jan 2024

    36/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.50 / $1.40
    • Context8K
    Full specs Remove Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
  2. Our pick

    Mistral AI

    Codestral

    Released May 29, 2024

    48/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.30 / $0.90
    • Context256K
    Full specs Remove Codestral

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Codestral is our pick

Codestral is the better all-round choice, scoring 48/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (36). It leads on price and context window. 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 priceCodestralCodestral $0.45 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) $0.725 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextCodestralCodestral 256,000 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsQwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text · Codestral: Text
  • Self-hostingCodestralPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen Plus Character (Japanese)Codestral
Price50%5766
Inputs & features30%2525
Context window20%036
Overall100%36/10048/100

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.

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) vs Codestral specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen)CodestralMistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)——
ECI rank——
Price per million tokens
Input$0.50$0.30 (best)
Output$1.40$0.90 (best)
Cached input—$0.03
Blended (3:1)$0.725$0.45 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window8,192 tokens256,000 tokens (best)
Max output512 tokens4,096 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningNoNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen-plus-character-jacodestral-latest
API providers13 (best)
ReleasedJan 2024May 29, 2024
Knowledge cutoffApr 2024Oct 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.

  • Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
  • Codestral$4.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) or Codestral?

Codestral is the better all-round choice, scoring 48/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (36). It leads on price and context window. 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, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) or Codestral?

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).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) has not been scored yet and Codestral has not been scored yet.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) and Codestral yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Codestral has the largest context window at 256,000 tokens, against 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512, Codestral up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text; Codestral accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

Codestral publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Codestral is the newest, released May 29, 2024. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) came out Jan 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) Apr 2024, Codestral Oct 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.

05 — Keep comparing

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