Aya 23 35BvsCohere Embed v4
Cohere vs Cohere — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | Aya 23 35B | Cohere Embed v4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Arena Rank | — | — |
| Context Window | 8K | 128K |
| Input Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | $0.12/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | $0.12/1M tokens |
| Parameters | 35B | Undisclosed |
| Open Source | Yes | No |
| Best For | Multilingual tasks, low-resource languages | Semantic search, RAG embeddings, document retrieval |
| Release Date | May 23, 2024 | Mar 1, 2025 |
Aya 23 35B
Aya 23 35B, developed by Cohere through the Cohere For AI research initiative, is an open-source multilingual model with 35 billion parameters and an 8K token context window supporting 23 languages. The model was developed with contributions from researchers worldwide, focusing on extending quality AI capabilities to lower-resource languages that mainstream models underserve. Aya 23 35B performs well on multilingual benchmarks, particularly for languages in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia where few commercial alternatives exist. Free and open-source, it can be fine-tuned and deployed for language-specific applications without cost. The model represents Cohere's commitment to democratizing AI access globally, providing a foundation for researchers and developers working in languages outside the English-Chinese-European focus of most commercial models.
View Cohere profile →Cohere Embed v4
Cohere Embed v4, developed by Cohere, is the first multimodal embedding model in Cohere's lineup, processing both text and images into unified 128K-context vector representations. The model generates embeddings for semantic search, RAG pipelines, document retrieval, and visual search applications. Supporting 100+ languages, Embed v4 produces compact, efficient vectors optimized for modern vector databases. Its multimodal capability enables searching across mixed document types containing both text and visual elements. Priced at $0.12 per million tokens, it offers affordable embedding generation for production applications. The model represents a significant upgrade over text-only Embed v3, enabling unified search across document types. It is particularly valuable for enterprises with heterogeneous content including PDFs, presentations, and image-heavy documents that require combined text and visual understanding.
View Cohere profile →Key Differences: Aya 23 35B vs Cohere Embed v4
Cohere Embed v4 supports a larger context window (128K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
Aya 23 35B is open-source (free to self-host and fine-tune) while Cohere Embed v4 is proprietary (API-only access).
When to use Aya 23 35B
- +You need to self-host or fine-tune the model
- +Your use case involves multilingual tasks, low-resource languages
When to use Cohere Embed v4
- +You need to process long documents (128K context)
- +You prefer a managed API without infrastructure overhead
- +Your use case involves semantic search, rag embeddings, document retrieval
The Verdict
Cohere Embed v4 wins our head-to-head comparison with 3 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for semantic search, rag embeddings, document retrieval, though Aya 23 35B holds an edge in multilingual tasks, low-resource languages.
Last compared: April 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages