Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) vs ShieldGemma 9B
Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) (2024) and ShieldGemma 9B (2024) are compact production models from AI at Meta and Google DeepMind. Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) ships a 66k-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 3.3 70B Instruct (free) fits 8x more tokens; pick it for long-context work and ShieldGemma 9B for tighter calls.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | general production evaluation |
| Decision fit | Classification and JSON / Tool use | Classification |
| Context window | 66k | 8k |
| Cheapest output | $0.32/1M tokens | - |
| Provider routes | 10 tracked | 1 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 0 shared | 0 shared |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) uniquely exposes Structured outputs in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) for Classification and JSON / Tool use.
- 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 3.3 70B Instruct (free)
$160
Cheapest tracked route/tier: OpenRouter
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 Structured outputs before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on NVIDIA NIM; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) adds Structured outputs in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-12-06 | 2024-07-01 |
| Context window | 66k | 8k |
| Parameters | 70B | 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 | 2023-12 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.10/1M tokens | - |
| Output price | $0.32/1M tokens | - |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free) | ShieldGemma 9B |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| JSON / Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | Yes | 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 7B vs ShieldGemma 9B
- Llama 3.1 NemoGuard 8B Content Safety vs ShieldGemma 9B
- Llama Guard 4 12B vs ShieldGemma 9B
- Llama 3 8B Instruct vs ShieldGemma 9B
- Llama 3.1 NemoGuard 8B Topic Control vs ShieldGemma 9B
Popular comparisons for Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (free)
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-09. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.