Llama 3.1 70B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct (2024) and Qwen3-235B-A22B (2025) are compact production models from AI at Meta and Alibaba. Both ship a 128k-token context window. On HumanEval, Qwen3-235B-A22B leads by 8.6 pts. On pricing, Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.09/1M 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.
Qwen3-235B-A22B is ~344% cheaper at $0.09/1M; pay for Llama 3.1 70B Instruct only for provider fit.
Decision scorecard
Local evidence first| Signal | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Qwen3-235B-A22B |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | provider-routed production | provider-routed production |
| Decision fit | Coding, RAG, and Long context | Coding, RAG, and Long context |
| Context window | 128k | 128k |
| Cheapest output | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.58/1M tokens |
| Provider routes | 14 tracked | 5 tracked |
| Shared benchmarks | 1 shared | HumanEval leader |
Decision tradeoffs
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct has the lower cheapest tracked output price at $0.40/1M tokens.
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct has broader tracked provider coverage for fallback and route flexibility.
- Local decision data tags Llama 3.1 70B Instruct for Coding, RAG, and Long context.
- Qwen3-235B-A22B holds a shared-benchmark lead on HumanEval, ahead by 8.6 points.
- Local decision data tags Qwen3-235B-A22B for Coding, RAG, and Long context.
Monthly cost at traffic
Estimate token spend from the cheapest tracked input and output route or tier on this page.
Llama 3.1 70B Instruct
$420
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Hyperbolic AI Inference
Qwen3-235B-A22B
$217
Cheapest tracked route/tier: Novita AI
Estimated monthly gap: $203. Batch, cache, alternate speed tiers, and negotiated pricing are excluded from this local estimate.
Switch friction
- Provider overlap exists on Fireworks AI, AWS Bedrock, and OpenRouter; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Qwen3-235B-A22B is $0.18/1M tokens higher on cheapest tracked output pricing, so quality gains need to justify the spend.
- Provider overlap exists on Fireworks AI, OpenRouter, and AWS Bedrock; start route-level A/B tests there.
- Llama 3.1 70B Instruct is $0.18/1M tokens lower on cheapest tracked output pricing before cache, batch, or negotiated discounts.
Specs
| Specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2024-07-23 | 2025-04-29 |
| Context window | 128k | 128k |
| Parameters | 70B | 235B |
| Architecture | Decoder Only | Decoder Only |
| 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 | 2023-12 | - |
Pricing and availability
| Pricing attribute | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Qwen3-235B-A22B |
|---|---|---|
| Input price | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.09/1M tokens |
| Output price | $0.40/1M tokens | $0.58/1M tokens |
| Providers |
Capabilities
| Capability | Llama 3.1 70B Instruct | Qwen3-235B-A22B |
|---|---|---|
| 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 3.1 70B Instruct | Qwen3-235B-A22B |
|---|---|---|
| HumanEval | 84.1 | 92.7 |
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Last reviewed: 2026-09-24. Data sourced from public model cards and provider documentation.