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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Codestral 25.08 vs Claude Haiku 4.5

Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 61 to 40 and 31 on our weighted score, though Codestral 25.08 is 4.4× cheaper per token.

  1. ByteDance Seed

    Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

    Released Aug 20, 2025

    40/100
    • ECI—
    • Price—
    • Context524K
  2. Mistral AI

    Codestral 25.08

    Released Jul 30, 2025

    31/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.30 / $0.90
    • Context128K
  3. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    61/100
    • ECI142.2
    • Price$1.00 / $5.00
    • Context200K
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 61/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40) and Codestral 25.08 (31). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on 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 priceCodestral 25.08Codestral 25.08 $0.45 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
  • Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · Codestral 25.08 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Codestral 25.08: Text · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs
  • Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightSeed-OSS-36B-InstructCodestral 25.08Claude Haiku 4.5
Inputs & features60%353580
Context window40%492432
Overall100%40/10031/10061/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. 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.

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Codestral 25.08 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 specifications side by side
SpecificationSeed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance SeedCodestral 25.08Mistral AIClaude Haiku 4.5Anthropic
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)——142.2
ECI rank——#102 of 165
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.5% (best)—71.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics67.5% (best)—66.7%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——13.2%
Price per million tokens
Input—$0.30 (best)$1.00
Output—$0.90 (best)$5.00
Cached input—$0.03 (best)$0.10
Blended (3:1)—$0.45 (best)$2.00
Long-context rate—Same rateSame rate
Price source—Official Mistral APIOfficial Anthropic API
Limits
Context window524,288 tokens (best)128,000 tokens200,000 tokens
Max output524,288 tokens (best)8,192 tokens64,000 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoNoYes
PDFsNoNoYes
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesNoYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesYes
Availability
WeightsOpenApache 2.0ProprietaryProprietary
API model ID—codestral-2508claude-haiku-4-5
API providers—1148 (best)
ReleasedAug 20, 2025Jul 30, 2025Oct 15, 2025
Knowledge cutoffJul 2024—Feb 28, 2025
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.

  • Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
  • Codestral 25.08$4.80
  • Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct, Codestral 25.08 or Claude Haiku 4.5?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 61/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40) and Codestral 25.08 (31). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on 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, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct, Codestral 25.08 or Claude Haiku 4.5?

Codestral 25.08 is cheaper at $0.30 input / $0.90 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.45 per million tokens for Codestral 25.08 versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (4.4× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has not been scored yet, Codestral 25.08 has not been scored yet and Claude Haiku 4.5 has an ECI of 142.2.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct, Codestral 25.08 and Claude Haiku 4.5 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?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5 and 128,000 for Codestral 25.08. Maximum output per response: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, Codestral 25.08 up to 8,192, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Codestral 25.08 accepts text; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Codestral 25.08 and Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025; Codestral 25.08 came out Jul 30, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024, Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025.

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.