ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs GPT-4o mini vs Mistral Large 2.1

GPT-4o mini comes out ahead, 56 to 43 and 38 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen2.5 32B Instruct

    Released Sep 17, 2024

    43/100
    • ECI128.5
    • Price$0.70 / $2.80
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen2.5 32B Instruct
  2. Our pick

    OpenAI

    GPT-4o mini

    Released Jul 18, 2024

    56/100
    • ECI126.6
    • Price$0.15 / $0.60
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove GPT-4o mini

  3. Mistral AI

    Mistral Large 2.1

    Released Nov 18, 2024

    38/100
    • ECI128.5
    • Price$2.00 / $6.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Mistral Large 2.1
01 — Verdict

GPT-4o mini is our pick

GPT-4o mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (43) and Mistral Large 2.1 (38). It leads on price and inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen2.5 32B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 128.5 · Mistral Large 2.1 128.5 · GPT-4o mini 126.6
  • Lowest priceGPT-4o miniGPT-4o mini $0.263 · Qwen2.5 32B Instruct $1.23 · Mistral Large 2.1 $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen2.5 32B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 131,072 · Mistral Large 2.1 131,072 · GPT-4o mini 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsGPT-4o miniQwen2.5 32B Instruct: Text · GPT-4o mini: Text, Images, PDFs · Mistral Large 2.1: Text
  • Self-hostingQwen2.5 32B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1Publishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen2.5 32B InstructGPT-4o miniMistral Large 2.1
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%514951
Price25%467727
Inputs & features15%257025
Context window10%242424
Overall100%43/10056/10038/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs GPT-4o mini vs Mistral Large 2.1 specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen2.5 32B InstructAlibaba (Qwen)GPT-4o miniOpenAIMistral Large 2.1Mistral AI
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)128.5 (best)126.6128.5 (best)
ECI rank#131 of 148#135 of 148#130 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions46.1%37.7%51.3% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—0.7%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics7.4%6.9%7.8% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—8.3%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.70$0.15 (best)$2.00
Output$2.80$0.60 (best)$6.00
Cached input—$0.075—
Blended (3:1)$1.23$0.263 (best)$3.00
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial OpenAI APIOfficial Mistral API
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens (best)128,000 tokens131,072 tokens (best)
Max output8,192 tokens16,384 tokens (best)16,384 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen2-5-32b-instructgpt-4o-minimistral-large-2411
API providers121 (best)2
ReleasedSep 17, 2024Jul 18, 2024Nov 18, 2024
Knowledge cutoffApr 2024Sep 2023Nov 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.

  • Qwen2.5 32B Instruct$12.60
  • GPT-4o mini$2.70
  • Mistral Large 2.1$32.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen2.5 32B Instruct, GPT-4o mini or Mistral Large 2.1?

GPT-4o mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (43) and Mistral Large 2.1 (38). It leads on price and inputs & features. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct, GPT-4o mini or Mistral Large 2.1?

GPT-4o mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.60 output per million tokens (official OpenAI API price). Qwen2.5 32B Instruct costs $0.70 input / $2.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Mistral Large 2.1 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 $0.263 per million tokens for GPT-4o mini versus $1.23 for Qwen2.5 32B Instruct (4.7× as much) and $3.00 for Mistral Large 2.1 (11× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 128.5 (#131 of 148), Mistral Large 2.1 128.5 (#130 of 148) and GPT-4o mini 126.6 (#135 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (123.5–130.0 vs 123.8–130.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Mistral Large 2.1 51.3%, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 46.1%, GPT-4o mini 37.7%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Mistral Large 2.1 7.8%, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct 7.4%, GPT-4o mini 6.9%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen2.5 32B Instruct, GPT-4o mini and Mistral Large 2.1 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1 have the largest context windows (131,072 and 131,072 tokens), against 128,000 for GPT-4o mini. Maximum output per response: Qwen2.5 32B Instruct up to 8,192, GPT-4o mini up to 16,384, Mistral Large 2.1 up to 16,384 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct accepts text; GPT-4o mini accepts text, images and PDFs; Mistral Large 2.1 accepts text. GPT-4o mini handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1 publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; GPT-4o mini is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Mistral Large 2.1 is the newest, released Nov 18, 2024. Qwen2.5 32B Instruct came out Sep 17, 2024; GPT-4o mini came out Jul 18, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen2.5 32B Instruct Apr 2024, GPT-4o mini Sep 2023, Mistral Large 2.1 Nov 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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