Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 vs ShieldGemma 9B
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 (2025) and ShieldGemma 9B (2024) are compact production models from NVIDIA AI and Google DeepMind. Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 ships a 4k-token context window, while ShieldGemma 9B ships a 8k-token context window. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 is safer overall; choose ShieldGemma 9B when long-context analysis matters.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | multimodal apps | general production evaluation |
| Decision fit | Vision | Classification |
| Context window | 4k | 8k |
| Cheapest output | - | - |
| Provider routes | 1 tracked | 1 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 shared | 0 shared |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 uniquely exposes Vision and Multimodal in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 for Vision.
- ShieldGemma 9B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Local decision data tags ShieldGemma 9B for Classification.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1
Unavailable
No complete token price in local provider data
ShieldGemma 9B
Unavailable
No complete token price in local provider data
Cost delta unavailable until both models have sourced input and output token prices.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Check replacement coverage for Vision and Multimodal before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 adds Vision and Multimodal in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2025-03-01 | 2024-07-01 |
| Context window | 4k | 8k |
| Parameters | 8B | 9B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Decoder Only |
| License | Llama 3 Community | Gemma |
| Openness | Open weights | Open weights |
| Weights | Unknown | Unknown |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: conditional |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | - | - |
| Output price | - | - |
| Providers |
Pricing not yet sourced for either model.
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | Yes | No |
| Multimodal | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | No | No |
| Code execution | No | No |
| IDE integration | No | No |
| Computer use | No | No |
| Parallel agents | No | No |
Benchmarks
No shared benchmark scores are currently available for this pair.
Continue comparing
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- Llama Guard 4 12B vs ShieldGemma 9B
Popular comparisons for Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1
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- Llama 3.1 Nemotron Nano VL 8B v1 vs GPT-1
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Popular comparisons for ShieldGemma 9B
Last reviewed: 2026-05-19. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.