Model Comparison

Claude 3 Opus vs Codestral-22BWhich is better in 2026?

Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Claude 3 Opus vs Codestral-22B — which is better?

Claude 3 Opus (by Anthropic) and Codestral-22B (by Mistral AI) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 1 benchmarks (HumanEval), while Codestral-22B is better at 0 benchmarks. Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Claude 3 Opus if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks

Choose Codestral-22B if…

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped May 2024
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Want to compare interactively?Try the playground

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 1 benchmarks (HumanEval), while Codestral-22B is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Mon Jun 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude 3 Opus specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only Claude 3 Opus specifies output context (200,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude 3 Opus
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
Mistral AI
Codestral-22B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mon Jun 22 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Claude 3 Opus supports multimodal inputs, whereas Codestral-22B does not.

Claude 3 Opus can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude 3 Opus

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Codestral-22B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3 Opus is licensed under a proprietary license, while Codestral-22B uses MNPL-0.1.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude 3 Opus

Proprietary

Closed source

Codestral-22B

MNPL-0.1

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3 Opus was released on 2024-02-29, while Codestral-22B was released on 2024-05-29.

Codestral-22B is 3 months newer than Claude 3 Opus.

Claude 3 Opus

Feb 29, 2024

2.3 years ago

Codestral-22B

May 29, 2024

2.1 years ago

3mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Anthropic
Larger context window (200,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher HumanEval score (84.9% vs 81.1%)
Mistral AI
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Anthropic
Claude 3 Opus
Mistral AI
Codestral-22B

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Codestral-22B.

Which is better, Claude 3 Opus or Codestral-22B?

Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Claude 3 Opus is made by Anthropic and Codestral-22B is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Claude 3 Opus compare to Codestral-22B in benchmarks?

Claude 3 Opus scores ARC-C: 96.4%, HellaSwag: 95.4%, GSM8k: 95.0%, MGSM: 90.7%, BIG-Bench Hard: 86.8%. Codestral-22B scores HumanEvalFIM-Average: 91.6%, HumanEval: 81.1%, MBPP: 78.2%, Spider: 63.5%, HumanEval-Average: 61.5%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude 3 Opus and Codestral-22B?

Claude 3 Opus supports 200K tokens and Codestral-22B supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude 3 Opus and Codestral-22B?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs MNPL-0.1). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude 3 Opus and Codestral-22B?

Claude 3 Opus is developed by Anthropic and Codestral-22B is developed by Mistral AI.

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