Llama 3.1 8B vs Mistral Small 3
How do these models stack up? Below is an expert side-by-side comparison of specifications, context window capacity, live pricing per million tokens, and standardized benchmark scores for Llama 3.1 8B and Mistral Small 3.
Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B is Meta's lightweight open-weight model from the Llama 3.1 generation, optimized for efficient deployment on consumer hardware and edge devices. Despite its compact 8-billion-parameter size, it delivers strong performance on instruction following, text summarization, and lightweight coding tasks. Lllama 3.1 8B is the most downloaded model in the Llama family and runs efficiently on laptops, single GPUs, and CPU via quantization — making it the default choice for on-device AI applications and local prototyping.
Mistral Small 3
Mistral Small 3 is a 24B-parameter language model optimized for low-latency performance across common AI tasks. Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it features both pre-trained and instruction-tuned versions designed...
Technical Specifications
| Specification | Llama 3.1 8B | Mistral Small 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Mistral |
| Context Window | 131,072 tokens | 32,768 tokens |
| Agent Suitability | 74/100 | 84/100 |
| Time to First Token (TTFT) | 80 ms | 120 ms |
| Deployment Model | self hostable | managed api |
| Production Stability | stable | stable |
| API Available | Yes | Yes |
| Released Date | 2024-07-23 | 2025-01-30 |
API Pricing Comparison
Input Price per Million Tokens
Llama 3.1 8B
$0.04
Mistral Small 3
$0.07
Output Price per Million Tokens
Llama 3.1 8B
$0.04
Mistral Small 3
$0.20
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Benchmark Performance Metrics
Scores show the raw performance percentages verified across key evaluation suites. Higher bars indicate superior accuracy and capability in that domain.
Llama 3.1 8B Quirks & Gotchas
- ▸Perfect for CPU/edge deployment — runs on Raspberry Pi with quantization
- ▸Limited tool calling vs larger models — best for simple classification and chat
Mistral Small 3 Quirks & Gotchas
- ▸Fastest TTFT at lowest cost — ideal for high-volume classification
- ▸Not designed for complex reasoning — route multi-step tasks to Mistral Large 3