Ministral 8B vs SWE-1.5
| Signal | Ministral 8B | Delta | SWE-1.5 |
|---|---|---|---|
Capabilities | 33 | -17 | |
Pricing | 100 | 0 | |
Context window size | 81 | +81 | |
Recency | 10 | -58 | |
Output Capacity | 20 | -- | |
| Overall Result | 1 wins | of 5 | 3 wins |
Score History
37.4
current score
SWE-1.5
right now
37.5
current score
Ministral 8B
Mistral AI
SWE-1.5
Windsurf
SWE-1.5 saves you $16.50/month
That's $198.00/year compared to Ministral 8B at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.
| Metric | Ministral 8B | SWE-1.5 | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Score | 37 | 38 | SWE-1.5 |
| Rank | #387 | #386 | SWE-1.5 |
| Quality Rank | #387 | #386 | SWE-1.5 |
| Adoption Rank | #387 | #386 | SWE-1.5 |
| Parameters | 8B | -- | -- |
| Context Window | 128K | -- | -- |
| Pricing | $0.11/$0.11/M | Free | -- |
| Signal Scores | |||
| Capabilities | 33 | 50 | SWE-1.5 |
| Pricing | 100 | 100 | SWE-1.5 |
| Context window size | 81 | 0 | Ministral 8B |
| Recency | 10 | 68 | SWE-1.5 |
| Output Capacity | 20 | 20 | Ministral 8B |
Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.
Scores 37/100 (rank #387), placing it in the top -33% of all 290 models tracked.
Scores 38/100 (rank #386), placing it in the top -33% of all 290 models tracked.
With only a 0-point gap, these models are in the same performance tier. The practical difference in output quality is minimal - your choice should depend on pricing, latency requirements, and specific feature needs.
Choose Ministral 8B when you need:
- Processing long documents or large codebases (128K token context)
Choose SWE-1.5 when you need:
- High-volume production workloads where API costs must be minimized
- Agentic applications using tool/function calling
- Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
Both models are priced similarly, so the decision comes down to quality and features rather than cost.
Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.
When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.
Code generation & review
Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring
Customer support chatbot
Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. SWE-1.5 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support
Long document analysis
Larger context window (128K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass
Batch data extraction
Lower output pricing ($0.00/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily
Creative writing & content
Higher overall composite score (38/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content
Ministral 8B and SWE-1.5 are extremely close in overall performance (only 0.10000000000000142 points apart). Your best choice depends entirely on which specific strengths matter most for your use case.
By Use Case
Best for Quality
Ministral 8B
Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Best for Cost
SWE-1.5
100% lower pricing; better value at scale
Best for Reliability
Ministral 8B
Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Best for Prototyping
Ministral 8B
Stronger community support and better developer experience
Best for Production
Ministral 8B
Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
by Mistral AI
- Choose for Quality - Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
- Choose for Reliability - Higher uptime and faster response speeds
- Choose for Prototyping - Stronger community support and better developer experience
- Choose for Production - Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale
| Capability | Ministral 8B | SWE-1.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Vision (Image Input) | ||
| Function Callingdiffers | ||
| Streaming | ||
| JSON Modediffers | ||
| Reasoningdiffers | ||
| Web Search | ||
| Image Output |
Ministral 8B
Mistral AI
SWE-1.5
Windsurf
SWE-1.5 saves you $0.3300/month
That's 100% cheaper than Ministral 8B at 1,000 tokens/request and 100 requests/day.
Assumes 60% input / 40% output token ratio per request. Actual costs may vary based on your usage pattern.
| Parameter | Ministral 8B | SWE-1.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Context Window | 128K | -- |
| Max Output Tokens | -- | -- |
| Open Source | No | No |
| Created | Oct 17, 2024 | Sep 1, 2025 |