Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) vs Mistral Large 4 (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 4 (Medium) by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-30.
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) scores 35.3 points higher (58.4 vs 23.1) but costs 9.5× as much to run the benchmark ($8910 vs $936; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) when you need intelligence above 23.1, and Mistral Large 4 (Medium) when 23.1 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) | Mistral Large 4 (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 58.4 | 23.1 | −60.4% Mistral Large 4 (Medi… is 60.4% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $8,909.67 | $936.36 | −89.5% Mistral Large 4 (Medi… is 89.5% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 649.40s | Not reported | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $4.00 / $20.0 | $0.70 / $2.10 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 4 (Medium) vs Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback): 60.4% less intelligence, 89.5% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5.5 (Max, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Gemini 4 Carbon (High) scores 59.40 for $8240.
- Mistral Large 4 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 52.30 for $718.
Compare something else
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/mistral-large-4-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-5/mistral-large-4-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill