Llama 3 8B Instruct vs Mixtral 8x7B
Llama 3 8B Instruct (2024) and Mixtral 8x7B (2023) are compact production models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama 3 8B Instruct ships a 8k-token context window, while Mixtral 8x7B ships a 32k-token context window. On Google-Proof Q&A, Mixtral 8x7B leads by 10 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 8B Instruct is ~650% cheaper at $0.02/1M; pay for Mixtral 8x7B only for long-context analysis.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3 8B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use | Coding and Classification |
| Context window | 8k | 32k |
| Cheapest output | $0.05/1M tokens | $0.45/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 17 tracked | 18 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 4 shared | Google-Proof Q&A leader |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3 8B Instruct holds a shared-benchmark lead on HellaSwag, ahead by 0.2 points.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.05/1M tokens.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct uniquely exposes Structured outputs in local model data.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3 8B Instruct for Coding, Classification, and JSON / Tool use.
- Mixtral 8x7B holds a shared-benchmark lead on Google-Proof Q&A, ahead by 10 points.
- Mixtral 8x7B has the larger context window for long prompts, retrieval packs, or transcript analysis.
- Mixtral 8x7B has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Local decision data tags Mixtral 8x7B for Coding and Classification.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama 3 8B Instruct
$28.50
Cheapest tracked route/tier: DeepInfra
Mixtral 8x7B
$233
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Mistral AI Studio
Estimated monthly gap: $204. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on Databricks Foundation Model Serving, NVIDIA NIM, and GCP Vertex AI; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Mixtral 8x7B is $0.40/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
- Check replacement coverage for Structured outputs before moving production traffic.
- Provider overlap exists on AWS Bedrock, DeepInfra, and OctoAI API (Deprecated); start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct is $0.40/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
- Llama 3 8B Instruct adds Structured outputs in local capability data.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-04-18 | 2023-12-11 |
| Context window | 8k | 32k |
| Parameters | 8B | 8x7B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Mixture of Experts |
| License | Llama 3 Community | Apache 2.0OSI-approved |
| Openness | Open weights | Open source |
| Weights | Available | Unknown |
| Code | Unknown | Unknown |
| Commercial use | Commercial use: conditional | Commercial use: permitted |
| Knowledge cutoff | 2023-03 | 2023-12 |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3 8B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.02/1M tokens | $0.15/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.05/1M tokens | $0.45/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3 8B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| 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
| Benchmark | Llama 3 8B Instruct | Mixtral 8x7B |
|---|---|---|
| Google-Proof Q&A | 44.8 | 54.8 |
| HumanEval | 68.2 | 80.5 |
| Massive Multitask Language Understanding | 76.9 | 80.2 |
| HellaSwag | 91.1 | 90.9 |
Continue comparing
- Llama 3 8B Instruct vs Qwen2-7B-Instruct
- Mistral Large 2 vs Mixtral 8x7B
- Llama 3 70B Instruct vs Mixtral 8x7B
- 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
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Last reviewed: 2026-07-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.