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Kimi K2.8 Preview vs Mistral Small 4

Comparing Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4 across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Moonshot AI · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4 trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Kimi K2.8 Preview also accepts a larger context window (1,048,576 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

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

Choose Kimi K2.8 Preview

  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,048,576 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

Choose Mistral Small 4

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Kimi K2.8 Preview
Moonshot AI
Mistral Small 4
Mistral AI
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
$0.15 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.60 / M
Context window
1,048,576
256,000

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Kimi K2.8 Preview · 9 for Mistral Small 4

No common benchmarks found

Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4don'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

Kimi K2.8 Preview accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Mistral Small 4's 256,000 tokens. Only Mistral Small 4 specifies output context (256,000 tokens).

Moonshot AI
Kimi K2.8 Preview
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output- tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 4
Input256,000 tokens
Output256,000 tokens
Mon Sep 21 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4 support multimodal inputs.

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

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 4

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Kimi K2.8 Preview is licensed under a proprietary license, while Mistral Small 4 uses Apache 2.0.

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

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Proprietary

Closed source

Mistral Small 4

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Kimi K2.8 Preview was released on 2026-09-11, while Mistral Small 4 was released on 2026-03-16.

Kimi K2.8 Preview is 6 months newer than Mistral Small 4.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

Sep 11, 2026

1 weeks ago

5mo newer
Mistral Small 4

Mar 16, 2026

6 months ago

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

Provider Availability

Kimi K2.8 Preview is available from Moonshot AI. Mistral Small 4 is available from Mistral AI.

Kimi K2.8 Preview

moonshot logo
Unknown Organization

Mistral Small 4

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.60/1M
* 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 Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Kimi K2.8 Preview
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 4
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Kimi K2.8 Preview vs Mistral Small 4.

Which is better, Kimi K2.8 Preview or Mistral Small 4?

Kimi K2.8 Preview (Moonshot AI) and Mistral Small 4 (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 Kimi K2.8 Preview compare to Mistral Small 4 in benchmarks?

Mistral Small 4 scores AIME 2025: 83.8%, MMLU-Pro: 78.0%, AA-LCR: 71.2%, GPQA: 71.2%, LiveCodeBench: 63.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4?

Kimi K2.8 Preview supports 1.0M tokens and Mistral Small 4 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 Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4?

Key differences include context window (1.0M vs 256K), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Kimi K2.8 Preview and Mistral Small 4?

Kimi K2.8 Preview is developed by Moonshot AI and Mistral Small 4 is developed by Mistral AI.

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