Compare / Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3.1 24B

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 18 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Meta · profile
Mistral Small 3.1 24B
Mistral · profile
Results compared
18
Shared sources
3

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Mistral Small 3.1 24B? The short answer

  • Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is cheaper: $0.058 against $0.40 per million tokens, 7.0 times less.
  • They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (6.9 and 7.1).
  • On our business benchmarks, Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

At a glance

Llama 3.1 8B InstructMistral Small 3.1 24B
Price per million tokens$0.050 in · $0.080 out$0.35 in · $0.56 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.058$0.40
Cheapest host, blended$0.025 (DeepInfra, FP8)–
Intelligence Index6.97.1
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens128,000 tokens
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inthe USFrance

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among models available today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. The better rank is in green.

Use caseLlama 3.1 8B InstructMistral Small 3.1 24B
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 154 of 161 114 of 161
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 173 of 195 172 of 195
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 178 of 187 157 of 187

Every shared result

BenchmarkMetricLlama 3.1 8B InstructMistral Small 3.1 24B
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedBusiness, management and financeArena rating 1,2101,297
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedCreative writingArena rating 1,1771,270
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedExpert promptsArena rating 1,1981,302
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedInstruction followingArena rating 1,1911,294
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedOverallArena rating 1,2111,303
Arena (formerly LMArena)reportedWriting, literature and languageArena rating 1,1821,290
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score 5.4026.3
Artificial AnalysisreportedArtificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score 6.907.10
Artificial AnalysisreportedGPQA Diamond% of questions 25.9%45.4%
Artificial AnalysisreportedHumanity's Last Exam% of questions 5.3%4.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedIFBench% of instructions 28.6%29.9%
Artificial AnalysisreportedLong-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions 18.0%22.3%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks 1.5%26.2%
Artificial AnalysisreportedTerminal-Bench Hard% of tasks 0.8%7.6%
Artificial AnalysisreportedΤ²-bench telecom% of tasks 16.4%25.1%
UGI LeaderboardreportedRequested-length error% off the requested word count 20.0%11.0%
UGI LeaderboardreportedStyle adherencescore from 0 to 1 0.340.35
UGI LeaderboardreportedWriting scorescore out of 100 24.832.1

Bold green marks the better value on that metric. Where a source reports ranges that overlap, the difference may not be meaningful; see the benchmark page for ranges.

Quick answers

Is Llama 3.1 8B Instruct better than Mistral Small 3.1 24B?

It depends on the task. Among models available today, on our benchmarks and licensed sources, Mistral Small 3.1 24B ranks higher for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Which is cheaper, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Mistral Small 3.1 24B?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs $0.058 per million tokens (three input to one output), against $0.40 for Mistral Small 3.1 24B.

Run Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3.1 24B on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.