Anthropic
AI research company that makes the Claude models, the Claude apps and the Claude API.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $20 a month for Claude Pro; API from $1 per million input tokens (Haiku 4.5)Open source noStars 2.1knpm a week 54M
Mistral AI alternatives
10 tools you can use instead of Mistral AI, ranked by live GitHub stars and npm downloads. Anthropic, OpenAI and OpenAI API are the most used. Stats updated 5 hours ago.
OpenAI and Anthropic are the closest alternatives among model makers with an API and a chat app. Cohere focuses on enterprise language, embedding and rerank models. Together AI hosts a catalog of open source models.
When Mistral AI is not a good fit
Mistral AI is a French AI research company that builds both open-weight and proprietary large language models, offered through an API billed per token and through Le Chat, its consumer chat app. Le Chat has a free tier and paid plans from $5.99 a month for students up to $14.99 a month for individuals, and the API is billed per million tokens, for example $0.5 input / $1.5 output per million tokens for Mistral Large.
It is a weaker choice for:
- Teams that want every model in the lineup to be open-weight, since flagship models like Mistral Large are proprietary
- Applications needing the single highest-scoring frontier model regardless of price, where larger US labs' top models may outperform
- Users who need full pricing transparency without checking a separate page per model, since not every model's price is listed prominently
The alternatives
Most used first.
View Anthropic
OpenAI
AI research company behind ChatGPT and the GPT model family, accessed through apps and an API.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus; API pricing varies by modelOpen source noStars 11.2knpm a week 51M
OpenAI API
Pay-per-token API access to OpenAI's GPT models for building AI into your own applications.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.10 input / $0.50 output per million tokens on GPT-6 LunaOpen source noStars 11.2knpm a week 51M
Ollama
Run open source AI models locally, with an optional hosted cloud and Pro plan.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $20 a month for the Pro plan, including $60 of usage credit for cloud modelsOpen source yesStars 182knpm a week 896k
Hugging Face
Hub for open source AI models, datasets and demo apps, plus paid hosting for inference and Spaces.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $9 a month for a PRO accountOpen source yesStars 167knpm a week 441k
Replicate
Run and deploy machine learning models in the cloud through a simple API, billed by the second.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from about $0.000025 a second for small CPU instances, varying by model and hardwareOpen source noStars 598npm a week 705k
Cohere
Enterprise-focused AI company offering language, embedding and rerank models through an API.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.30 input / $0.60 output per million tokens on Command-light; current flagship Command A models are priced on requestOpen source nonpm a week 556k
Together AI
Cloud platform for running and fine-tuning open source AI models, with serverless inference and GPU clusters.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.09 per million input tokens (lowest-cost serverless models)Open source nonpm a week 120k
LM Studio
Desktop app for downloading and running open-weight language models locally, with a chat UI and local API.
Pricing FreemiumOpen source nonpm a week 68.6k
Perplexity AI
AI-powered answer engine that searches the web and cites sources, with a free tier and paid Pro/Max plans.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from About $20 a month (Pro plan)Open source no
Mistral AI and its alternatives, side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free plan | Paid from | Open source | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mistral AI | Pay as you go | Yes, in Le Chat, with limited usage and $10 a month in API credits | $5.99 a month for Le Chat Pro (student pricing), $14.99 a month standard | No | None |
| Anthropic | Pay as you go | Yes, in the Claude apps. The API is billed per token. | $20 a month for Claude Pro; API from $1 per million input tokens (Haiku 4.5) | No | 2.1k |
| OpenAI | Freemium | Yes, in ChatGPT. The API has no free plan and is billed per token. | $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus; API pricing varies by model | No | 11.2k |
| OpenAI API | Pay as you go | No, the API has no free tier and is billed per token from the first request | $0.10 input / $0.50 output per million tokens on GPT-6 Luna | No | 11.2k |
| Ollama | Freemium | Yes, running models locally is always free | $20 a month for the Pro plan, including $60 of usage credit for cloud models | Yes, MIT | 182k |
| Hugging Face | Freemium | Yes: unlimited public model, dataset and Space hosting, free CPU and limited ZeroGPU compute | $9 a month for a PRO account | Yes, Open source libraries (e.g. Transformers) are Apache-2.0; hosted models and datasets carry their own individual licenses | 167k |
| Replicate | Pay as you go | No ongoing free plan; billing is pay-as-you-go with no monthly minimum | about $0.000025 a second for small CPU instances, varying by model and hardware | No | 598 |
| Cohere | Pay as you go | Yes: evaluation API keys are free but limited in usage | $0.30 input / $0.60 output per million tokens on Command-light; current flagship Command A models are priced on request | No | None |
| Together AI | Pay as you go | Limited free credits are typically available for new accounts to try the platform | $0.09 per million input tokens (lowest-cost serverless models) | No | None |
| LM Studio | Freemium | Yes, the core app and running local models is free | Not listed | No | None |
| Perplexity AI | Freemium | Yes: free tier available with standard search and limited access to advanced features | About $20 a month (Pro plan) | No | None |
Pricing facts come from each tool's official pricing page, with the checked date on the tool's own page.
Questions
What is the most popular alternative to Mistral AI?
By GitHub stars, Anthropic is the most used alternative to Mistral AI listed on ScratchDB, with 2.1k stars.
Which Mistral AI alternatives are open source?
Ollama and Hugging Face are open source.
Which Mistral AI alternatives have a free plan?
Anthropic, OpenAI, Ollama, Hugging Face, Cohere, LM Studio and Perplexity AI have a free plan. The table on this page shows what each one includes.