Claude Opus 5 (Medium) vs Mistral Large 3
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Medium) by Anthropic or Mistral Large 3 by Mistral? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Medium) scores 35.5 points higher (44.8 vs 9.3) but costs 59× as much to run the benchmark ($2732 vs $46.4; flagship vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 9.3, and Mistral Large 3 when 9.3 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Medium) | Mistral Large 3 | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 44.8 | 9.3 | −79.2% Mistral Large 3 is 79.2% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,731.91 | $46.41 | −98.3% Mistral Large 3 is 98.3% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.14s | 7.18s | −45.4% Mistral Large 3 is 45.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.50 / $1.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Mistral Large 3 vs Claude Opus 5 (Medium): 79.2% less intelligence, 98.3% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 45.4% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (High, Default Fallback) scores 53.60 for $2172.
- Mistral Large 3 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
Claude Opus 5 (Medium)Mistral Large 3Today'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-medium/mistral-large-3 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5-medium/mistral-large-3?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill