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Head-to-head comparison

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Laguna XS 2.1

Mistral Medium 3.5 (Mistral AI) and Laguna XS 2.1 (Poolside) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 15 September 2026

As of 15 September 2026, Mistral Medium 3.5 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#63 vs #81); and Laguna XS 2.1 is 62.5× cheaper per output token ($0.12/1M vs $7.50/1M).

Which should you choose?

Choose Mistral Medium 3.5 if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #63 against #81 (55.9 vs 50.8 points).

Choose Laguna XS 2.1 if…

  • API cost matters — $0.12/1M output tokens against $7.50/1M, about 62.5× cheaper.
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.06/1M against $1.50/1M.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Laguna XS 2.1 was listed 2 July 2026, Mistral Medium 3.5 30 April 2026.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Laguna XS 2.1: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Mistral Medium 3.5 and Laguna XS 2.1
FieldMistral Medium 3.5Mistral AILaguna XS 2.1Poolside
ModelCap Index position#63#81
Index score55.950.8
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokens$1.50$0.06
Output price / 1M tokens$7.50$0.12
Context window262K tokens262K tokens
Max output tokens210K33K
API providers listed11
Weight accessAPI onlyRestricted license
Input modalitiesText, Image, FileText
First listed30 April 20262 July 2026
PublisherMistral AIPoolside

Evidence: 4 public benchmark observations across 4 boards · 3 reported rows against measured corpus ladders (27%); global-corpus-prior over 193 held-out anchors (73%); shrunk 3.8 up toward the measured corpus. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Laguna XS 2.1

Public benchmark boards where Mistral Medium 3.5 or Laguna XS 2.1 has a published result
BoardMistral Medium 3.5Laguna XS 2.1Leads
Arena codingArena (LMArena)14791468–1490—Only one result
LMArena AgentLMArena-10.3%-11.7%–-8.8%—Only one result
AA Intelligence IndexArtificial Analysis14.9intelligence-index:v4.3:reasoning-unspecified—Only one result
AA τ²-Bench TelecomArtificial Analysis94.2%tau2:telecom:dual-control:pass-at-1:3-repeats:source-model="Mistral Medium 3.5":reasoning=true—Only one result
AA Humanity's Last ExamArtificial Analysis13.8%hle:may-2025:text-only-2158:no-tools:pass-at-1:source-model="Mistral Medium 3.5":reasoning=true—Only one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Laguna XS 2.1: common questions

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 better than Laguna XS 2.1?

Mistral Medium 3.5 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 15 September 2026: #63 against #81. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.

Is Mistral Medium 3.5 cheaper than Laguna XS 2.1?

Laguna XS 2.1 is cheaper on output tokens: $0.12/1M against $7.50/1M. Input tokens are $1.50/1M for Mistral Medium 3.5 and $0.06/1M for Laguna XS 2.1. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $6.75 for Mistral Medium 3.5 versus $0.18 for Laguna XS 2.1. Laguna XS 2.1 costs 97.3% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.

Which has the bigger context window, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Laguna XS 2.1?

Both publish a 262K-token context window.

Which is better for coding, Mistral Medium 3.5 or Laguna XS 2.1?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are Mistral Medium 3.5 and Laguna XS 2.1 open-weight models?

Mistral Medium 3.5: API only. Laguna XS 2.1: Restricted license. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Mistral Medium 3.5 and Laguna XS 2.1?

ModelCap currently lists 1 API provider for Mistral Medium 3.5 and 1 for Laguna XS 2.1, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Mistral Medium 3.5 vs Laguna XS 2.1 comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 15 September 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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