Model comparison
Claude Opus 4.8 vs Mistral Medium 3.5 128B
Head-to-head evidence from 22 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: Claude Opus 4.8 #5 (Supported); Mistral Medium 3.5 128B unranked (Not scored). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. Claude Opus 4.8 and Mistral Medium 3.5 128B share 22 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 31 results are unique to Claude Opus 4.8; 3 to Mistral Medium 3.5 128B.
Updated July 23, 2026- Shared results
- 22
- Claude Opus 4.8 only
- 31
- Mistral Medium 3.5 128B only
- 3
- Comparable categories
- 1 / 8
Treat this as a split decision. Claude Opus 4.8 makes more sense if coding is the priority or you need the larger 1M context window; Mistral Medium 3.5 128B is the better fit if you want the cheaper token bill.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 22 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Claude Opus 4.8 and Mistral Medium 3.5 128B finish on the same BenchAlign overall score, so this is less about a single winner and more about where the edge shows up. The BenchAlign headline says tie; the benchmark table is where the real choice happens.
Claude Opus 4.8 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $5.00 input / $25.00 output per 1M tokens, versus $1.50 input / $7.50 output per 1M tokens for Mistral Medium 3.5 128B. That is roughly 3.3x on output cost alone. Claude Opus 4.8 gives you the larger context window at 1M, compared with 256K for Mistral Medium 3.5 128B.
Category breakdown
Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.
| Category | Claude Opus 4.8 | Δ | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | Claude Opus 4.881.1 | Margin← 3.5 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B77.6 |
| Agentic | Claude Opus 4.880.3 | MarginNo overlap | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot measured |
| Knowledge | Claude Opus 4.862.7 | MarginNo overlap | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot measured |
| Math | Claude Opus 4.853.9 | MarginNo overlap | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot measured |
| Multimodal | Claude Opus 4.877.0 | MarginNo overlap | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot measured |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
SWE-bench Verified
CodingA 88.6%B 77.6%Winner: Claude Opus 4.8Δ 11SWE-bench Verified: Claude Opus 4.8 scored 88.6%; Mistral Medium 3.5 128B scored 77.6%. Claude Opus 4.8 wins this benchmark.
Operational comparison
Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.
| Metric | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | Claude Opus 4.8$5 input / $25 output | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B$1.5 input / $7.5 output | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B has the lower combined listed price. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | Claude Opus 4.8Not available | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | Claude Opus 4.8Not available | Mistral Medium 3.5 128BNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | Claude Opus 4.81M | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B256K | Claude Opus 4.8 lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
Agentic22 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 74.6% | — | Not comparable |
| BrowseCompSource | 84.3% | — | Not comparable |
| DeepSearchQASource | 93.1% | — | Not comparable |
| OSWorld-VerifiedSource | 83.4% | — | Not comparable |
| Finance Agent v2Source | 53.9% | — | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | 1594 | 929 | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| MCP AtlasSource | 82.2% | — | Not comparable |
| ToolathlonSource | 59.9% | — | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | 72.97% | 39.10% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA Agentic IndexSource | 47.2% | 19.0% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| τ²-bench resultsSource | 94.4% | 94.2% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| GDPval-AASource | 54.7% | 21.4% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| ResearchClawBenchSource | 21.1% | — | Not comparable |
| OSWorld 2.0Source | 20.6% | — | Not comparable |
| AA BriefcaseSource | 1347 | 506 | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA AutomationBenchSource | 48.5% | — | Not comparable |
| AA EnterpriseOps-GymSource | 44.0% | 33.7% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA Harvey LABSource | 91.1% | 69.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA Tau3 BankingSource | 27.6% | 14.4% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| terminalBenchHardSource | 58.3% | 33.3% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| aaTerminalBench21Source | 84.6% | — | Not comparable |
| τ³-bench resultsSource | — | 91.4% | Not comparable |
CodingClaude Opus 4.8 wins10 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 88.6% | 77.6% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| SWE-bench ProSource | 69.2% | — | Not comparable |
| SWE MultilingualSource | 84.4% | — | Not comparable |
| SWE MultimodalSource | 38.4% | — | Not comparable |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | 74.6% | — | Not comparable |
| cursorBench31Source | 58.4% | — | Not comparable |
| cursorBench32Source | 62.3% | — | Not comparable |
| AA Coding IndexSource | 74.3% | 46.9% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-SciCodeSource | 53.5% | 39.6% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| FrontierCode 1.1 MainSource | 46.5% | — | Not comparable |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
Knowledge11 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQASource | 93.6% | — | Not comparable |
| GPQA-DSource | 93.6% | — | Not comparable |
| HLESource | 57.9% | — | Not comparable |
| HLE w/o toolsSource | 49.8% | — | Not comparable |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | 55.7% | 29.9% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | 92.0% | 74.8% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-HLESource | 45.7% | 12.8% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | 27.4% | -36.3% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | 46.6% | 25.1% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | 35.9% | 82.0% | Claude Opus 4.8 leads |
| AA Openness IndexSource | — | 33.3% | Not comparable |
Math3 benchmarks
Multilingual1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| INCLUDESource | 87.6% | — | Not comparable |
Multimodal6 benchmarks
Inst. Following1 benchmarks
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4.8 | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-IFBenchSource | 62.2% | 68.8% | Mistral Medium 3.5 128B leads |
Frequently Asked Questions (2)
Which is better, Claude Opus 4.8 or Mistral Medium 3.5 128B?
Claude Opus 4.8 and Mistral Medium 3.5 128B are tied on the BenchAlign overall score, so the right pick depends on which category matters most for your use case.
Which is better for coding, Claude Opus 4.8 or Mistral Medium 3.5 128B?
Claude Opus 4.8 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 81.1 versus 77.6. Inside this category, AA Coding Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
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