The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Codestral-22B vs Kimi K2.8 Preview

Comparing Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Mistral AI · Moonshot AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Codestral-22B

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Kimi K2.8 Preview

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Codestral-22B
Mistral AI
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Moonshot AI
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
1,048,576

Individual benchmarks

7 reported for Codestral-22B · 0 for Kimi K2.8 Preview

No common benchmarks found

Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Previewdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Kimi K2.8 Preview specifies input context (1,048,576 tokens).

Mistral AI
Codestral-22B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output- tokens
Mon Sep 14 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas Codestral-22B does not.

Kimi K2.8 Preview can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Codestral-22B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Codestral-22B is licensed under MNPL-0.1, while Kimi K2.8 Preview uses a proprietary license.

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

Codestral-22B

MNPL-0.1

Open weights

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Codestral-22B was released on 2024-05-29, while Kimi K2.8 Preview was released on 2026-09-11.

Kimi K2.8 Preview is 28 months newer than Codestral-22B.

Codestral-22B

May 29, 2024

2.3 years ago

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Sep 11, 2026

3 days ago

2.3yr 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→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Codestral-22B
✓ Preferred
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Codestral-22B vs Kimi K2.8 Preview.

Which is better, Codestral-22B or Kimi K2.8 Preview?

Codestral-22B (Mistral AI) and Kimi K2.8 Preview (Moonshot AI) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Codestral-22B compare to Kimi K2.8 Preview in benchmarks?

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 Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview?

Codestral-22B supports an unknown number of tokens and Kimi K2.8 Preview supports 1.0M tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview?

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

Who makes Codestral-22B and Kimi K2.8 Preview?

Codestral-22B is developed by Mistral AI and Kimi K2.8 Preview is developed by Moonshot AI.

Related comparisons