Free-tier head-to-head comparison.
Pick Mistral La Plateforme when eu data-residency requirements, codestral for code generation, ministral for cost-sensitive edge use.
Pick OpenRouter when a/b testing models, multi-provider failover, building agents that pick model per task. the fastest way to try every frontier model with one key.
| Feature | Mistral La Plateforme | OpenRouter |
|---|---|---|
| Top model | mistral-large-latest | meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free |
| Free RPM | 60 | 20 |
| Free RPD | — | 200 |
| Free credit | — | — |
| Card required | No | No |
| OpenAI-compatible | No | Yes |
| API base | https://api.mistral.ai/v1 | https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 |
| Best for | EU data-residency requirements, Codestral for code generation, Ministral for cost-sensitive edge use. | A/B testing models, multi-provider failover, building agents that pick model per task. The fastest way to try every frontier model with one key. |
| Not for | Latency-critical UX — Mistral inference is slower than Groq/Cerebras on the same models. | Latency-critical use cases — adds a routing hop. Use Groq / direct provider when ms matter. |