Claude Opus 5 (Low) vs Mistral Medium 3.5
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Low) by Anthropic or Mistral Medium 3.5 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Low) scores 25.2 points higher (39.4 vs 14.2) but costs 1.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1561 vs $1264; both premium class). Pick Claude Opus 5 (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Mistral Medium 3.5.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Low) | Mistral Medium 3.5 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.4 | 14.2 | −64.0% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 64.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,560.91 | $1,263.80 | −19.0% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 19.0% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.44s | 17.77s | +55.3% Mistral Medium 3.5 is 55.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $1.50 / $7.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Claude Opus 5 (Low): 64.0% less intelligence, 19.0% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 55.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Mistral Medium 3.5 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Claude Opus 5 (Low)Mistral Medium 3.5Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/mistral-medium-3-5 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-low/mistral-medium-3-5?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill