Llama Guard 4 12B vs Mistral Magistral Small 2509
Llama Guard 4 12B (2025) and Mistral Magistral Small 2509 (2025) are general-purpose language models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama Guard 4 12B ships a 164K-token context window, while Mistral Magistral Small 2509 ships a not-yet-sourced context window. On pricing, Llama Guard 4 12B costs $0.18/1M input tokens versus $0.5/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Llama Guard 4 12B is ~178% cheaper at $0.18/1M; pay for Mistral Magistral Small 2509 only for provider fit.
Specs
| Released | 2025-04-05 | 2025-09-01 |
| Context window | 164K | — |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Architecture | decoder only | - |
| License | Open Source | Proprietary |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Llama Guard 4 12B | Mistral Magistral Small 2509 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.18/1M tokens | $0.5/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.18/1M tokens | $1.5/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Llama Guard 4 12B | Mistral Magistral Small 2509 | |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | ||
| Multimodal | ||
| Reasoning | ||
| Function calling | ||
| Tool use | ||
| Structured outputs | ||
| Code execution |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark rows are currently sourced for this pair.
Deep dive
The capability footprint differs most on structured outputs: Llama Guard 4 12B. Both models share the core language-model surface, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.
For cost, Llama Guard 4 12B lists $0.18/1M input and $0.18/1M output tokens, while Mistral Magistral Small 2509 lists $0.5/1M input and $1.5/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Llama Guard 4 12B lower by about $0.62 per million blended tokens. Availability is 3 providers versus 1, so concentration risk also matters.
Choose Llama Guard 4 12B when provider fit, lower input-token cost, and broader provider choice are central to the workload. Choose Mistral Magistral Small 2509 when provider fit are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship. This keeps the decision grounded in measurable tradeoffs instead of brand-level assumptions. It also helps separate model capability from provider packaging, which can change cost and latency.
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Llama Guard 4 12B or Mistral Magistral Small 2509?
Llama Guard 4 12B is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Llama Guard 4 12B costs $0.18/1M input and $0.18/1M output tokens. Mistral Magistral Small 2509 costs $0.5/1M input and $1.5/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.
Is Llama Guard 4 12B or Mistral Magistral Small 2509 open source?
Llama Guard 4 12B is listed under Open Source. Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is listed under Proprietary. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Which is better for structured outputs, Llama Guard 4 12B or Mistral Magistral Small 2509?
Llama Guard 4 12B has the clearer documented structured outputs signal in this comparison. If structured outputs is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.
Where can I run Llama Guard 4 12B and Mistral Magistral Small 2509?
Llama Guard 4 12B is available on NVIDIA NIM, Replicate API, and OpenRouter. Mistral Magistral Small 2509 is available on AWS Bedrock. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
When should I pick Llama Guard 4 12B over Mistral Magistral Small 2509?
Llama Guard 4 12B is ~178% cheaper at $0.18/1M; pay for Mistral Magistral Small 2509 only for provider fit. If your workload also depends on provider fit, start with Llama Guard 4 12B; if it depends on provider fit, run the same evaluation with Mistral Magistral Small 2509.
Continue comparing
Last reviewed: 2026-04-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.