Decision boundary
Do not start with which model is absolutely stronger. Start with the boundary: cost, context, speed, quality, ecosystem, or supply stability.
- Claude Opus 4.1 is worth checking first when the Claude family, 200K context, and text+image->text capability match the job.
- Mistral Medium 3.1 is worth checking first when the Mistral family, 262.1K context, and text+image->text capability match the job.