Mistral, an AI startup, recently unveiled Devstral, a new AI model specifically designed for coding, developed in collaboration with All Hands AI. The model is available for commercial use under the Apache 2.0 license. Mistral asserts that Devstral surpasses other open-source alternatives, including Google’s Gemma 3 27B and DeepSeek’s V3, when tested on the SWE-Bench Verified benchmark, which evaluates coding proficiency.
In a blog post, Mistral highlighted Devstral’s ability to efficiently interact with codebases, edit multiple files, and operate alongside coding agent frameworks like OpenHands and SWE-Agent. The model is light enough to run on devices such as a single Nvidia RTX 4090 or a Mac with 32GB of RAM, making it suitable for local and on-device deployment.
The introduction of Devstral coincides with the rising popularity of AI coding assistants. Recently, JetBrains launched its first open AI model for programming, while other tech giants like Google and OpenAI have rolled out their AI-driven programming tools. Despite their growth, AI-generated code can still pose issues such as security vulnerabilities and logic errors, prompting companies to hastily integrate these tools. A recent survey indicated that 76% of developers are either using or planning to use AI tools in their workflows.
Previously, Mistral ventured into the coding assistance realm with Codestral; however, it was not available for commercial use under its licensing terms. In contrast, Devstral is branded as a “research preview” and can be accessed via platforms like Hugging Face or through Mistral’s API, priced at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.30 for output tokens. For context, a million tokens equal about 750,000 words—significantly more than “War and Peace.”
Mistral is also developing a more advanced coding model slated for release soon. While Devstral has 24 billion parameters, making it smaller than other models, its performance metrics on coding tasks are promising. Founded in 2023, Mistral focuses on creating a suite of AI-powered services, backed by over €1.1 billion from various venture capitalists, and counts clients like BNP Paribas and AXA among its customers.
This recent launch marks Mistral’s third product introduction in just one month, following the release of Mistral Medium 3, a general-purpose model, and Le Chat Enterprise, a chatbot solution tailored for business integration with tools like Gmail and Google Drive. As Mistral continues to expand its offerings, the focus remains on enhancing AI capabilities for practical applications in software development.
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