Llama 3.2 1B Instruct vs Llama 3 8B Instruct
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct (2024) and Llama 3 8B Instruct (2024) are compact production models from AI at Meta. Llama 3.2 1B Instruct ships a 128k-token context window, while Llama 3 8B Instruct ships a 8k-token context window. On MMLU PRO, Llama 3 8B Instruct leads by 20.5 pts. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct fits 16x more tokens; pick it for long-context work and Llama 3 8B Instruct for tighter calls.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | Llama 3 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | Coding, RAG, and Long context | Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use |
| Context window | 128k | 8k |
| Cheapest output | $0.20/1M tokens | $0.05/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 7 tracked | 17 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 5 shared | MMLU PRO leader |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3.2 1B Instruct for Coding, RAG, and Long context.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct holds a shared-benchmark lead on MMLU PRO, ahead by 20.5 points.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.05/1M tokens.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3 8B Instruct for Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama 3.2 1B Instruct
$71.85
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Cloudflare Workers AI
Llama 3 8B Instruct
$28.50
Cheapest tracked route/tier: DeepInfra
Estimated monthly gap: $43.35. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on AWS Bedrock, Fireworks AI, and Cloudflare Workers AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct is $0.15/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
- Provider overlap exists on Cloudflare Workers AI, OpenRouter, and Fireworks AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct is $0.15/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-09-25 | 2024-04-18 |
| Context window | 128k | 8k |
| Parameters | 1.23B | 8B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Decoder Only |
| License | Llama 3 Community | Llama 3 Community |
| Openness | Open weights | Open weights |
| Weights | Unknown | Available |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: conditional |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2023-12 | 2023-03 |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | Llama 3 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.03/1M tokens | $0.02/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.20/1M tokens | $0.05/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | Llama 3 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | Yes |
| Code execution | No | No |
| IDE integration | No | No |
| Computer use | No | No |
| Parallel agents | No | No |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 1B Instruct | Llama 3 8B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU PRO | 20.0 | 40.5 |
| Google-Proof Q&A | 25.6 | 44.8 |
| HumanEval | 28.1 | 68.2 |
| Massive Multitask Language Understanding | 49.3 | 76.9 |
| HellaSwag | 78.9 | 91.1 |
Continue comparing
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct vs Qwen2-7B-Instruct
- Llama 3.2 1B Instruct vs Phi-3 Mini 4k
- DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Llama 3.2 1B Instruct
- DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Llama 3 8B Instruct
- Llama 3 8B Instruct vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
- Llama 3 8B Instruct vs Phi-3 Mini 4k
- Claude Opus 4.6 vs Llama 3 8B Instruct
- Llama 3 8B Instruct vs Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
- DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Llama 3 8B Instruct
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.