Side-by-side comparison of free tiers, pricing changes, and stability. Catalogue dates here run to 2026-09-05.
Quick Verdict: Groq provides ultra-fast inference for open models on custom hardware. Mistral AI offers its own proprietary models (Mistral Large, Codestral, Pixtral) and its Free plan includes $10 a month in API credits. Groq wins on speed; Mistral wins on model variety.
Fast LLM inference on Groq's LPU hardware. Free plan: gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3.8 27B, each at 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day, plus Whisper speech-to-text at 2,000 requests a day. Llama 3.3 70B and Llama 3.1 8B left the free and developer plans on 2026-08-16 and are Enterprise-only. Developer plan prices per 1M tokens: gpt-oss-120b $0.15/$0.60; gpt-oss-20b $0.075/$0.30.
Mistral's Free plan includes $10 per month in API credits and lets you test Mistral models in Studio, alongside limited messages, web searches and coding sessions in Vibe. API keys work in Free mode with no credit card, within usage and rate limits. In Free mode, Mistral may use your inputs and outputs to train its models unless you opt out. API prices: Ministral 3 (3B) $0.1/$0.1 (per 1M tokens); Mistral Small 4 $0.15/$0.6 (per 1M tokens); Mistral Large 3 $0.5/$1.5 (per 1M tokens); Mistral Medium 3.5 $1.5/$7.5 (per 1M tokens). Batch processing is half price, and cached input tokens cost up to 90% less.
Key Differences
Models: Groq serves open-weight models (gpt-oss, Qwen) on its hardware. Mistral serves its own proprietary models (Mistral Large, Codestral, Pixtral) plus Mistral-tuned open models.
Free tier volume: Mistral's Free plan includes $10 a month in API credits. Groq allows 200K tokens a day per model (about 6M a month) at 30 RPM.
Speed: Groq's custom LPU hardware delivers significantly faster inference. Mistral runs on standard GPU infrastructure.
Code models: Mistral has Codestral, a dedicated coding model. Groq serves general models that also handle code but without a specialized coding model.
Pricing Change History
Groq
reducedeffective 2026-08-16medium impact
Groq shut down Llama 3.1 8B and Llama 3.3 70B on its free and developer plans. On the free plan Llama 3.1 8B had allowed 14,400 requests and 500,000 tokens a day; the free chat models left (gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and a Qwen 27B model) allow 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day each. Source ↗
Mistral AI
restructuredeffective 2026-08-14high impact
Mistral's Free plan now includes $10 a month in API credits for Studio and the API, alongside limited messages, web searches and image generations in Vibe. Source ↗
Our Recommendation
Choose Groq if you need the fastest inference speed, want to use open-weight models such as gpt-oss, or are building real-time applications.
Choose Mistral AI if you want access to Mistral's proprietary models (especially Codestral for code), or prefer European-based AI providers.
Groq provides ultra-fast inference for open models on custom hardware. Mistral AI offers its own proprietary models (Mistral Large, Codestral, Pixtral) and its Free plan includes $10 a month in API credits. Groq wins on speed; Mistral wins on model variety.
What is Groq's free tier?
Groq offers a Free plan: Fast LLM inference on Groq's LPU hardware. Free plan: gpt-oss-120b, gpt-oss-20b and Qwen3.8 27B, each at 30 requests a minute, 1,000 requests and 200,000 tokens a day, plus Whisper speech-to-text at 2...
What is Mistral AI's free tier?
Mistral AI offers a Free plan: Mistral's Free plan includes $10 per month in API credits and lets you test Mistral models in Studio, alongside limited messages, web searches and coding sessions in Vibe. API keys work in Free mode w...
Should I choose Groq or Mistral AI?
Choose Groq if you need the fastest inference speed, want to use open-weight models such as gpt-oss, or are building real-time applications. Choose Mistral AI if you want access to Mistral's proprietary models (especially Codestral for code), or prefer European-based AI providers.
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