Head to head · Guard moderation · October 2026 research run
Mistral Moderation API vs OpenAI Moderation API
OpenAI Moderation API has a score of 71.6 (BB) against Mistral Moderation API's 58.6 (C). Both do guard moderation. The largest gap is security & auth, 38 points.
Which one, for what
Pick Mistral Moderation API for
- payments & pricing (+10)
Pick OpenAI Moderation API for
- reliability (+25)
- schema & documentation (+7)
- agent ergonomics (+10)
- security & auth (+38)
- maintenance & community (+14)
- transparency & trust (+7)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Mistral Moderation API | OpenAI Moderation API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 65 | OpenAI Moderation API +25 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 85 | 92 | OpenAI Moderation API +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 85 | OpenAI Moderation API +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 54 | 92 | OpenAI Moderation API +38 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 30 | Mistral Moderation API +10 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 33 | 47 | OpenAI Moderation API +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 83 | 90 | OpenAI Moderation API +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| Total | 58.6 · C | 71.6 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Mistral Moderation API | OpenAI Moderation API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mistral AI | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.mistral.ai/v1/moderations | https://api.openai.com/v1/moderations |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-03-01 | 2026-06-04 |
| Popularity | 769 stars, 8.4M npm/wk, 3.7M PyPI/wk | 31k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Mistral Moderation API
Free, on the same key as the rest of the Mistral API, and the Experiment plan needs no card. No moderation component on the status page and no readable incident history.
OpenAI Moderation API
Free, on any OpenAI project key. No prompt-injection, jailbreak or PII detection.
Before you call either
Mistral Moderation API
- Use /v1/chat/moderations with the full message list when checking an assistant reply. The raw endpoint has no context
- Read category_scores and set your own threshold per category. The booleans use Mistral's cut-offs
- Pin mistral-moderation-2603. The 2411 model was retired on 31 March 2026
- Move to a paid workspace or zero retention if the text you screen shouldn't train models
- For a Mistral-hosted agent, set the moderation_llm_v2 guardrail with block_on_error true and skip the separate call
OpenAI Moderation API
- Read category_scores rather than flagged alone. The default thresholds are OpenAI's
- Pin omni-moderation-2024-09-26 if the scores feed a decision you audit. The latest alias will move
- Send an array of inputs in one call and match results by index to stay under the per-minute limit
- Add a moderation object to a Responses call instead of a second request when you only need scores on the generation
- Pair it with a separate injection detector. A clean result says nothing about a hidden instruction in a tool result
Other comparisons with Mistral Moderation API or OpenAI Moderation API
- Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs Mistral Moderation API
- Amazon Bedrock Guardrails vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs Mistral Moderation API
- Azure AI Content Safety (Prompt Shields) vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Google Cloud Model Armor vs Mistral Moderation API
- Google Cloud Model Armor vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Guardrails AI vs Mistral Moderation API
- Guardrails AI vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails) vs Mistral Moderation API
- Lakera Guard (Check Point AI Guardrails) vs OpenAI Moderation API
- Mistral Moderation API vs NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails
- NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails vs OpenAI Moderation API