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LongCat-2.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct

LongCat-2.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 50.0 to -5.1. Ministral 8B Instruct is 5.2x cheaper per token.

Meituan · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

LongCat-2.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 50.0 to -5.1, ranking #20 overall.

On price, Ministral 8B Instruct is roughly 5.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

LongCat-2.5 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 LongCat-2.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 50.0 and ranks #20 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and coding — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,048,576 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2026

Choose Ministral 8B Instruct

  • cost matters — it's about 5.2x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

LongCat-2.5
Meituan
Ministral 8B Instruct
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
50.0
#20
-5.1
#391
Reasoning
48.3
#21
-5.2
#383
Coding
38.6
#27
-14.5
#303
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.30 / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
$1.20 / M
$0.10 / M
Context window
1,048,576
128,000

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
LongCat-2.5
Ministral 8B Instruct
Math
37.2#37
-4.2#340
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

23 reported for LongCat-2.5 · 11 for Ministral 8B Instruct

No common benchmarks found

LongCat-2.5 and Ministral 8B Instructdon'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

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Ministral 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, LongCat-2.5 ($0.30/1M tokens) is 3.0x more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).

For output processing, LongCat-2.5 ($1.20/1M tokens) is 12.0x more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).

In conclusion, LongCat-2.5 is more expensive than Ministral 8B Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Mon Nov 02 2026 • llm-stats.com
Meituan
LongCat-2.5
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.20
Best providerMeituan
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.10
Best providerMistral
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

1592.0B diff

LongCat-2.5 has 1592.0B more parameters than Ministral 8B Instruct, making it 19850.6% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-2.5
1.6Tparameters
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
8.0Bparameters
1600.0B
LongCat-2.5
8.0B
Ministral 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

LongCat-2.5 accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Ministral 8B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. LongCat-2.5 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Ministral 8B Instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Meituan
LongCat-2.5
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Mistral AI
Ministral 8B Instruct
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Mon Nov 02 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

LongCat-2.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Ministral 8B Instruct does not.

LongCat-2.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

LongCat-2.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Ministral 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-2.5 was released on 2026-11-01, while Ministral 8B Instruct was released on 2024-10-16.

LongCat-2.5 is 25 months newer than Ministral 8B Instruct.

LongCat-2.5

Nov 1, 2026

-1 days ago

2.0yr newer
Ministral 8B Instruct

Oct 16, 2024

2.0 years 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

LongCat-2.5 is available from Meituan. Ministral 8B Instruct is available from Mistral AI.

LongCat-2.5

meituan logo
Meituan
Input Price:Input: $0.30/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.20/1M

Ministral 8B Instruct

mistral logo
Mistral
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against LongCat-2.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

LongCat-2.5
✓ Preferred
Ministral 8B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-2.5 vs Ministral 8B Instruct.

Which is better, LongCat-2.5 or Ministral 8B Instruct?

LongCat-2.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 50.0 to -5.1. LongCat-2.5 is made by Meituan and Ministral 8B Instruct is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does LongCat-2.5 compare to Ministral 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

LongCat-2.5 scores MathVision: 96.5%, BrowseComp: 91.9%, CharXiv-R: 90.2%, Terminal-Bench 2.1: 88.4%, Video-MME: 85.2%. Ministral 8B Instruct scores MT-Bench: 83.0%, Winogrande: 75.3%, ARC-C: 71.9%, Arena Hard: 70.9%, MBPP pass@1: 70.0%.

Is LongCat-2.5 cheaper than Ministral 8B Instruct?

Ministral 8B Instruct is 3.0x cheaper for input tokens. LongCat-2.5 costs $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output via meituan. Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.10/M output via mistral.

What are the context window sizes for LongCat-2.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct?

LongCat-2.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Ministral 8B Instruct supports 128K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between LongCat-2.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (50.0 vs -5.1), context window (1.0M vs 128K), input pricing ($0.30 vs $0.10/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Unknown vs Mistral Research License). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes LongCat-2.5 and Ministral 8B Instruct?

LongCat-2.5 is developed by Meituan and Ministral 8B Instruct is developed by Mistral AI.

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