# Mistral 7B

Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-7b/

10 people recommended Mistral 7B in Hacker News comments, 1 had mixed feelings and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 12 months, in 12 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free open-weights model people run locally for fast, offline use, especially on JavaScript and multilingual tasks. Critics call it dated next to newer models and unreliable for production.

Summary written by Claude from 19 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 17 of those comments still count.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs locally and offline (3 comments in the sample): "one of the best free/open models you can run locally on a MacBook. So fast too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49175070)) "smaller models like mistral-7b can run at 258 tokens/s on an iPhone 17" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46212151)) "Another cool thing about Mistral 7b is it runs offline" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49157517))
- Handles tasks fine for years (3 comments in the sample): "Used mistral 7b locally for years - it’s fine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49609701)) "running my own Mistral 7b is more than fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47447987)) "Mistral 7b was pioneering in its day" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49291942))
- Fast on laptops and phones (1 comment in the sample): "Mistral 7b does it fine, instantly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49130759))
- Beats some commercial models (1 comment in the sample): "My local running Mistral 7b is a 100x better at modern JavaScript than any model on the market" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47643722))

## What people warn about

- Outdated next to newer models (3 comments in the sample): "It was a good model then. Now its not anywhere near where SOTA models are." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46214869)) "Is hopelessly dated. There are much better newer models around." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47102174)) "that model is… not the best" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48139729))

## Other open-weight language models people recommend

- [Qwen 3.8 27B](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen-3-8-27b/): 804 recommend, 242 mixed, 301 criticize
- [Z.ai GLM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glm-5-2/): 750 recommend, 181 mixed, 278 criticize
- [Kimi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kimi-k3/): 652 recommend, 182 mixed, 275 criticize
- [Gemma 4](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemma-4/): 524 recommend, 120 mixed, 166 criticize

## The badge

A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged.

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Mistral 7B", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mistral-7b/ (10 recommend, 1 mixed, 4 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026).

Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.