Llama 3.1 405B vs Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407)
Llama 3.1 405B (2024) and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) (2024) are compact production models from AI at Meta and MistralAI. Llama 3.1 405B ships a 128K-token context window, while Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) ships a 128K-token context window. On Google-Proof Q&A, Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) leads by 5.6 pts. This comparison covers specs, pricing, capabilities, benchmarks, provider availability, and production fit.
Llama 3.1 405B is safer overall; choose Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) when provider fit matters.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-07-23 | 2024-07-18 |
| Context window | 128K | 128K |
| Parameters | 405B | 12B |
| Architecture | decoder only | decoder only |
| License | Open Source | Apache 2.0 |
| Knowledge cutoff | - | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3.1 405B | Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | - | $0.02/1M tokens |
| Output price | - | $0.04/1M tokens |
| Providers | - |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3.1 405B | Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) |
|---|---|---|
| Vision | No | No |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Function calling | No | No |
| Tool use | No | No |
| Structured outputs | No | No |
| Code execution | No | No |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1 405B | Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) |
|---|---|---|
| Google-Proof Q&A | 51.5 | 57.1 |
| HumanEval | 89.0 | 81.1 |
| Massive Multitask Language Understanding | 88.6 | 81.5 |
| HellaSwag | 95.8 | 91.8 |
Deep dive
On shared benchmark coverage, Google-Proof Q&A has Llama 3.1 405B at 51.5 and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) at 57.1, with Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) ahead by 5.6 points; HumanEval has Llama 3.1 405B at 89 and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) at 81.1, with Llama 3.1 405B ahead by 7.9 points; Massive Multitask Language Understanding has Llama 3.1 405B at 88.6 and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) at 81.5, with Llama 3.1 405B ahead by 7.1 points. The largest visible gap is 7.9 points on HumanEval, which matters most when that benchmark mirrors your workload. Treat isolated benchmark wins as directional, because provider routing, prompt style, and tool access can move real application results.
The capability footprint is close: both models cover the core production surface. That makes context budget, benchmark fit, and provider maturity more important than a simple checklist. If your application depends on one integration detail, verify it against the provider route you plan to use, not just the base model listing.
Pricing coverage is uneven: Llama 3.1 405B has no token price sourced yet and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) has $0.02/1M input tokens. Provider availability is 0 tracked routes versus 7. Treat unknown pricing as an integration gap, then verify the route you will actually call before estimating production spend.
Choose Llama 3.1 405B when provider fit are central to the workload. Choose Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) when provider fit 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 3.1 405B or Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407)?
Llama 3.1 405B supports 128K tokens, while Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) supports 128K tokens. That gap matters most for long documents, large codebases, retrieval-heavy agents, and conversations where earlier context must remain visible.
Is Llama 3.1 405B or Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) open source?
Llama 3.1 405B is listed under Open Source. Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) is listed under Apache 2.0. License labels affect whether you can self-host, redistribute weights, or rely only on hosted APIs, so confirm the upstream license before deployment.
Where can I run Llama 3.1 405B and Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407)?
Llama 3.1 405B is available on the tracked providers still being sourced. Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) is available on NVIDIA NIM, Microsoft Foundry, DeepInfra, Fireworks AI, and Arcee AI. Provider coverage can affect latency, region availability, compliance posture, and fallback options.
When should I pick Llama 3.1 405B over Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407)?
Llama 3.1 405B is safer overall; choose Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407) when provider fit matters. If your workload also depends on provider fit, start with Llama 3.1 405B; if it depends on provider fit, run the same evaluation with Mistral NeMo Instruct (2407).
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Last reviewed: 2026-05-11. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.