solar-mini vs Vision Small vs Pixtral 12B
Vision Small comes out ahead, 84 to 40 and 15 on our weighted score.
Upstage
solar-mini
15/100- ECI—
- Price$0.15 / $0.15
- Context33K
- Our pick
VisparkVision Small
84/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context1M
Mistral AIPixtral 12B
40/100- ECI—
- Price$0.15 / $0.15
- Context128K
Vision Small is our pick
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Pixtral 12B (40) and solar-mini (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 pricesolar-mini and Pixtral 12Bsolar-mini $0.15 · Pixtral 12B $0.15 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Vision Small unpriced
- Longest contextVision SmallVision Small 1,000,000 · Pixtral 12B 128,000 · solar-mini 32,768 tokens
- Widest inputsVision Smallsolar-mini: Text · Vision Small: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Pixtral 12B: Text, Images
- Self-hostingPixtral 12BPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | solar-mini | Vision Small | Pixtral 12B |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 25 | 100 | 50 |
| Context window | 40% | 0 | 60 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 15/100 | 84/100 | 40/100 |
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 | solar-miniUpstage | Vision SmallVispark | Pixtral 12BMistral AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.15 | — | $0.15 |
| Output | $0.15 | — | $0.15 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.15 | — | $0.15 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Upstage API | — | Official Mistral API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 32,768 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 65,536 tokens | 128,000 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | Yes | No |
| Video | No | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | Yes | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | solar-mini | — | pixtral-12b |
| API providers | 1 | — | 4 (best) |
| Released | Jun 12, 2024 | May 15, 2024 | Sep 1, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Sep 2024 | — | Sep 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- solar-mini$1.80
- Vision Small—
- Pixtral 12B$1.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: solar-mini, Vision Small or Pixtral 12B?
Vision Small is the better all-round choice, scoring 84/100 against Pixtral 12B (40) and solar-mini (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, solar-mini, Vision Small or Pixtral 12B?
solar-mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (official Upstage API price). Pixtral 12B costs $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.15 per million tokens for solar-mini versus $0.15 for Pixtral 12B (1× 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. solar-mini has not been scored yet, Vision Small has not been scored yet and Pixtral 12B has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for solar-mini, Vision Small and Pixtral 12B 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 128,000 for Pixtral 12B and 32,768 for solar-mini. Maximum output per response: solar-mini up to 4,096, Vision Small up to 65,536, Pixtral 12B up to 128,000 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
solar-mini accepts text; Vision Small accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Pixtral 12B accepts text and images. Vision Small handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Pixtral 12B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; solar-mini and Vision Small is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Pixtral 12B is the newest, released Sep 1, 2024. solar-mini came out Jun 12, 2024; Vision Small came out May 15, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: solar-mini Sep 2024, Pixtral 12B Sep 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.
