Llama Guard 7B vs Mistral Medium 3

Name: Llama Guard 7B
Author: AI at Meta

Llama Guard 7B (2023) and Mistral Medium 3 (2025) are compact production models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama Guard 7B ships a 2K-token context window, while Mistral Medium 3 ships a 128K-token context window. On pricing, Llama Guard 7B costs $0.20/1M input tokens versus $0.40/1M for the alternative. This comparison covers specs, pricing, API access, capabilities, benchmarks, input and output token costs, and production fit for coding and agent workloads.

Llama Guard 7B is ~100% cheaper at $0.20/1M; pay for Mistral Medium 3 only for coding workflow support.

Decision scorecard

Local evidence first

Signal	Llama Guard 7B	Mistral Medium 3	How to read it
Best for	provider-routed production	multimodal apps, tool-calling agents, and provider-routed production	Use-case synthesis from product type, capability flags, context, and provider data.
Decision fit	Classification and JSON / Tool use	Coding, RAG, and Agents	Primary workload tags from local decision data.
Context window	2K	128K	Higher is better when prompts, retrieval chunks, or transcripts are large.
Cheapest output	$0.20/1M tokens	$2/1M tokens	Cheapest tracked provider route; verify your exact region and tier.
Provider routes	2 tracked	5 tracked	Broader coverage can reduce vendor lock-in and fallback risk.
Shared benchmarks	0 shared	0 shared	No shared benchmark scores are available for this pair yet.

Decision tradeoffs

Choose Llama Guard 7B when...

Llama Guard 7B has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.20/1M tokens.
Local decision data tags Llama Guard 7B for Classification and JSON / Tool use.

Choose Mistral Medium 3 when...

Mistral Medium 3 has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
Mistral Medium 3 has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
Mistral Medium 3 uniquely exposes Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use in local model data.
Local decision data tags Mistral Medium 3 for Coding, RAG, and Agents.

Monthly cost at traffic

Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.

Lower estimate Llama Guard 7B

Requests / monthInput tokens / requestOutput tokens / request

Llama Guard 7B

$210

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Together AI

Mistral Medium 3

$820

Cheapest tracked route/tier: Mistral AI Studio

Estimated monthly gap: $610. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.

Switch friction

Llama Guard 7B -> Mistral Medium 3

No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Llama Guard 7B and Mistral Medium 3; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
Mistral Medium 3 is $1.80/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
Mistral Medium 3 adds Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use in local capability data.

Mistral Medium 3 -> Llama Guard 7B

No overlapping tracked provider route is sourced for Mistral Medium 3 and Llama Guard 7B; plan for SDK, billing, or endpoint changes.
Llama Guard 7B is $1.80/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
Check replacement coverage for Vision, Multimodal, and JSON / Tool use before moving production traffic.

Specs

Specification	Llama Guard 7B AI at Meta	Mistral Medium 3 MistralAI
Released	2023-12-07	2025-05-01
Context window	2K	128K
Parameters	7B	—
Architecture	Decoder Only	Decoder Only
License	Llama 2 Community	Proprietary
Openness	Open weights	Proprietary
Weights	Available	Not released
Code	Unknown	Unknown
Commercial use	Restricted	Restricted
Knowledge cutoff	2022-09	2025-03

Pricing and availability

Pricing attribute	Llama Guard 7B	Mistral Medium 3
Input price	$0.20/1M tokens	$0.40/1M tokens
Output price	$0.20/1M tokens	$2/1M tokens
Providers	Together AI Fireworks AI	NVIDIA NIM Mistral AI Studio Microsoft Foundry OpenRouter GCP Vertex AI

Capabilities

Capability	Llama Guard 7B	Mistral Medium 3
Vision	No	Yes
Multimodal	No	Yes
Reasoning	No	No
JSON / Tool use	No	Yes
Structured outputs	Yes	Yes
Code execution	No	Yes
IDE integration	No	No
Computer use	No	No
Parallel agents	No	No

Benchmarks

No shared benchmark scores are currently available for this pair.

Deep dive

The capability footprint differs most on vision: Mistral Medium 3, multimodal input: Mistral Medium 3, JSON / Tool use: Mistral Medium 3, JSON / Tool use: Mistral Medium 3, and code execution: Mistral Medium 3. Both models share structured outputs, so the practical split is not just feature count. Use those differences to decide whether the page is about raw model quality, agentic coding support, multimodal ingestion, or predictable structured API behavior.

For cost, Llama Guard 7B lists $0.20/1M input and $0.20/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider, while Mistral Medium 3 lists $0.40/1M input and $2/1M output tokens on the cheapest tracked provider. A 70/30 input-output blend puts Llama Guard 7B lower by about $0.68 per million blended tokens. Availability is 2 providers versus 5, so concentration risk also matters.

Choose Llama Guard 7B when provider fit and lower input-token cost are central to the workload. Choose Mistral Medium 3 when coding workflow support, larger context windows, and broader provider choice are more important. For production, rerun your own prompts through the exact provider, region, and tool stack you plan to ship.

FAQ

Which has a larger context window, Llama Guard 7B or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 supports 128K tokens, while Llama Guard 7B supports 2K tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.

Which is cheaper, Llama Guard 7B or Mistral Medium 3?

Llama Guard 7B is cheaper on tracked token pricing. Llama Guard 7B costs $0.20/1M input and $0.20/1M output tokens. Mistral Medium 3 costs $0.40/1M input and $2/1M output tokens. Provider discounts or batch pricing can still change the final bill.

Is Llama Guard 7B or Mistral Medium 3 open source?

Llama Guard 7B is listed under Llama 2 Community. Mistral Medium 3 is listed under Proprietary. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.

Which is better for vision, Llama Guard 7B or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 has the clearer documented vision signal in this comparison. If vision is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.

Which is better for multimodal input, Llama Guard 7B or Mistral Medium 3?

Mistral Medium 3 has the clearer documented multimodal input signal in this comparison. If multimodal input is mission-critical, validate it against the provider endpoint because model-level support and API-level exposure can differ.

Where can I run Llama Guard 7B and Mistral Medium 3?

Llama Guard 7B is available on Together AI and Fireworks AI. Mistral Medium 3 is available on NVIDIA NIM, Mistral AI Studio, Microsoft Foundry, OpenRouter, and GCP Vertex AI. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.

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Last reviewed: 2026-10-18. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.

Both models

Llama Guard 7B Mistral Medium 3