🇨🇳 China🧠 GeneralistReleased October 2024
Yi-Lightning
01.AI
Free
Verdict
Strong value for high-volume usage.
Overview
Yi-Lightning by 01.AI (Kai-Fu Lee's team) is designed for Asian consumer apps needing volume and low latency. Very good at Chinese/English, weak on French.
Skill profile
Arena Elo1328
Verified benchmarks
MMLU81.5%
HumanEval82%
What do these scores mean?
MMLU81.5%excellent
General knowledge across dozens of academic subjects.
HumanEval82%excellent
Python code generation from specifications.
Strengths
- Has a free tier
- Competitive input pricing
Limitations
- No native GDPR guarantee
Who is it for
A good fit if…
- you want to control cost or self-host
Skip it if…
- you handle sensitive EU data
Ideal use cases
- Volume + speed in Chinese/English
- Low-cost Asia apps
Access & availability
Paid API per tokenFree tier available
Key specifications
Context
32K
Input price
$0.14 $/M
Output price
$0.14 $/M
Speed
180 tok/s
Price not auditedBenchmarks not audited
Estimate your monthly cost
Per-token API pricing$5.20/ month with Yi-Lightning
For the same usage
- Gemini 3 Flash$36+597%
- Gemini 3.1 Pro$145+2688%
- GPT-5.5$363+6870%
Indicative estimate based on standard API rates (excluding caching, batch and volume discounts). Always check the official pricing before committing.
Privacy
Not GDPR-compliantHosting : CN
Advanced data · for expertsArchitecture, modalities, detailed cost, full benchmarks▾
Advanced data · for experts
Architecture, modalities, detailed cost, full benchmarks
Architecture
MoE
Size
undisclosed
Cutoff date
Jul 2024
Inputs
text
Outputs
text, code
License
commercial
Hosting
CN
Hallucination score
3/5
Estimated cost (API)
Typical exchange (~3k in / 1k out)
≈ $0.0006
1M in + 1M out
≈ $0.28
All benchmarks
| Arena Elo | 1328 |
| MMLU | 81.5% |
| GPQA | — |
| HumanEval | 82.0% |
| SWE-Bench | — |
| MATH | — |