But you're right, Mistral Large 4 seems a much more expensive but overall weaker model across the board.

The reason to use them would be, well, because they're...Mistral. They're in EU, france is large in nuclear energy so the energy cost of training has much less of an environmental impact, the data protection laws are very good in EU. This can really be a deciding factor for many EU companies, and I think it's good that they now have something which is at least semi-usable. (apparently)

It's also good that other options exist, even if they are worse. Deepseek is kind of like a large specter looming over every model release, because it's just SO cheap and good. That doesn't mean we should abandon every other model.

Still, the model is not really competitive on price and abilities alone. I'm mostly happy to see Mistral still in the fight.

Since cost is so much higher than deepseek though it really seems like the biggest reason to use it would be "in the mistral subscription" for personal use or "because you need to abide by european data privacy laws" for companies.

Mostly I'm happy they're still in competition, as I mentioned already elsewhere.