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Grok 4.6 vs Mistral Medium 3.5

Comparing Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

xAI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Grok 4.6 also accepts a larger context window (500,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok 4.6

  • you process long inputs — it offers a 500,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

Choose Mistral Medium 3.5

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok 4.6
xAI
Mistral Medium 3.5
Mistral AI
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
$1.50 / M
Output price
$6.00 / M
$7.50 / M
Context window
500,000
256,000
Released
Aug 2026
Apr 2026
License
Proprietary
Modified MIT License

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5don't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

For input processing, Grok 4.6 ($2.00/1M tokens) is 1.3x more expensive than Mistral Medium 3.5 ($1.50/1M tokens).

For output processing, Grok 4.6 ($6.00/1M tokens) is 1.3x cheaper than Mistral Medium 3.5 ($7.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 cost the same.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com
xAI
Grok 4.6
Input tokens$2.00
Output tokens$6.00
Best providerxAI
Mistral AI
Mistral Medium 3.5
Input tokens$1.50
Output tokens$7.50
Best providerMistral
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Grok 4.6 accepts 500,000 input tokens compared to Mistral Medium 3.5's 256,000 tokens. Only Mistral Medium 3.5 specifies output context (256,000 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.6
Input500,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Medium 3.5
Input256,000 tokens
Output256,000 tokens
Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Grok 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Medium 3.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Medium 3.5 uses Modified MIT License.

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

Grok 4.6

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Medium 3.5

Modified MIT License

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.6 was released on 2026-08-12, while Mistral Medium 3.5 was released on 2026-04-29.

Grok 4.6 is 4 months newer than Mistral Medium 3.5.

Grok 4.6

Aug 12, 2026

1 weeks ago

3mo newer
Mistral Medium 3.5

Apr 29, 2026

3 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok 4.6 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-02-01, while Mistral Medium 3.5's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Grok 4.6's training data extends to 2026-02-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mistral Medium 3.5's cutoff date.

Grok 4.6

Feb 2026

Mistral Medium 3.5

—

Provider Availability

Grok 4.6 is available from xAI. Mistral Medium 3.5 is available from Mistral AI.

Grok 4.6

xai logo
xAI
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M

Mistral Medium 3.5

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $1.50/1MOutput Price:Output: $7.50/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.6
✓ Preferred
Mistral Medium 3.5
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.6 vs Mistral Medium 3.5.

Which is better, Grok 4.6 or Mistral Medium 3.5?

Grok 4.6 (xAI) and Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral 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 Grok 4.6 compare to Mistral Medium 3.5 in benchmarks?

Grok 4.6 scores CursorBench v3.2: 69.9%, DeepSWE 1.1: 65.9%, FrontierCode: 61.3%, AA-Index: 61.0%, GDPval-AA: 58.4%. Mistral Medium 3.5 scores COLLIE: 95.8%, Tau3 Telecom: 91.4%, AIME 2025: 86.3%, SWE-Bench Verified: 77.6%, Tau3 Retail: 76.1%.

Is Grok 4.6 cheaper than Mistral Medium 3.5?

Mistral Medium 3.5 is 1.3x cheaper for input tokens. Grok 4.6 costs $2.00/M input and $6.00/M output via xai. Mistral Medium 3.5 costs $1.50/M input and $7.50/M output via mistral.

What are the context window sizes for Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5?

Grok 4.6 supports 500K tokens and Mistral Medium 3.5 supports 256K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5?

Key differences include context window (500K vs 256K), input pricing ($2.00 vs $1.50/M), licensing (Proprietary vs Modified MIT License). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.6 and Mistral Medium 3.5?

Grok 4.6 is developed by xAI and Mistral Medium 3.5 is developed by Mistral AI.

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