Sonar vs Mixtral 8x7B
Mixtral 8x7B comes out ahead, 36 to 30 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
PerplexitySonar
30/100- ECI—
- Price$1.00 / $1.00
- Context128K
- Our pick
Mistral AIMixtral 8x7B
36/100- ECI118.5
- Price$0.70 / $0.70
- Context32K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
Mixtral 8x7B is our pick
Mixtral 8x7B is the better all-round choice, scoring 36/100 against Sonar (30). It leads on price and inputs & features. Sonar wins on 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 priceMixtral 8x7BMixtral 8x7B $0.70 · Sonar $1.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextSonarSonar 128,000 · Mixtral 8x7B 32,000 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsSonar: Text · Mixtral 8x7B: Text
- Self-hostingMixtral 8x7BPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Sonar | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 50 | 57 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 0 | 25 |
| Context window | 20% | 24 | 0 |
| Overall | 100% | 30/100 | 36/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | SonarPerplexity | Mixtral 8x7BMistral AI |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | 118.5 |
| ECI rank | — | #142 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 30.6% |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $1.00 | $0.70 (best) |
| Output | $1.00 | $0.70 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $1.00 | $0.70 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Perplexity API | Official Mistral API |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 128,000 tokens (best) | 32,000 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens | 32,000 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Tool calling | No | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| API model ID | sonar | open-mixtral-8x7b |
| API providers | 6 (best) | 1 |
| Released | Jan 1, 2024 | Dec 11, 2023 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Sep 1, 2025 | Jan 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Sonar$12.00
- Mixtral 8x7B$8.40
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Sonar or Mixtral 8x7B?
Mixtral 8x7B is the better all-round choice, scoring 36/100 against Sonar (30). It leads on price and inputs & features. Sonar wins on 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, Sonar or Mixtral 8x7B?
Mixtral 8x7B is cheaper at $0.70 input / $0.70 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). Sonar costs $1.00 input / $1.00 output per million tokens (official Perplexity API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.70 per million tokens for Mixtral 8x7B versus $1.00 for Sonar (1.4× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Sonar has not been scored yet and Mixtral 8x7B has an ECI of 118.5.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Sonar and Mixtral 8x7B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Sonar does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
Sonar has the largest context window at 128,000 tokens, against 32,000 for Mixtral 8x7B. Maximum output per response: Sonar up to 4,096, Mixtral 8x7B up to 32,000 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Sonar accepts text; Mixtral 8x7B accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Mixtral 8x7B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Sonar is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Sonar is the newest, released Jan 1, 2024. Mixtral 8x7B came out Dec 11, 2023. Knowledge cutoff: Sonar Sep 1, 2025, Mixtral 8x7B Jan 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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