Llama 3 8BvsLlama 3.1 8B
Meta AI vs Meta AI — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | Llama 3 8B | Llama 3.1 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta AI | Meta AI |
| Arena Rank | — | #22 |
| Context Window | 8K | 128K |
| Input Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | Free (open)/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | Free (open)/1M tokens |
| Parameters | 8B | 8B |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes |
| Best For | Edge deployment, fast inference, fine-tuning | Edge deployment, mobile, fast inference |
| Release Date | Apr 18, 2024 | Jul 23, 2024 |
Llama 3 8B
Llama 3 8B, developed by Meta AI, is a compact open-source model with 8 billion parameters and an 8K token context window. The model delivers strong performance for its size on general reasoning, instruction following, and text generation tasks. Trained on over 15 trillion tokens, Llama 3 8B benefits from a data-rich training regimen that maximizes capability within its compact footprint. It runs efficiently on a single consumer GPU, making it ideal for edge deployment, mobile applications, and on-device AI where network latency or data privacy concerns preclude cloud-based solutions. As a fully open-source model under Meta's permissive license, it supports commercial use and fine-tuning at zero cost. Llama 3 8B has become one of the most fine-tuned base models in the open-source ecosystem, powering thousands of specialized applications.
Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B, developed by Meta AI, is a compact open-source model with 8 billion parameters and a 128K token context window, a substantial upgrade from the 8K context of Llama 3. The model handles edge deployment, mobile AI, and fast inference tasks while supporting significantly longer document processing. Its extended context window enables use cases like document summarization, long-form analysis, and RAG applications that were impractical with the shorter-context predecessor. Llama 3.1 8B can run on consumer GPUs and mobile device accelerators, making it one of the most deployable long-context models available. Free and open-source under Meta's license, it supports commercial use and fine-tuning. Llama 3.1 8B ranks #22 on the Chatbot Arena leaderboard, demonstrating competitive performance for its compact parameter count.
Key Differences: Llama 3 8B vs Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B supports a larger context window (128K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
Llama 3 8B has 8B parameters vs Llama 3.1 8B's 8B, which affects inference speed and capability.
When to use Llama 3 8B
- +Your use case involves edge deployment, fast inference, fine-tuning
When to use Llama 3.1 8B
- +You need to process long documents (128K context)
- +Your use case involves edge deployment, mobile, fast inference
The Verdict
Llama 3.1 8B wins our head-to-head comparison with 2 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for edge deployment, mobile, fast inference, though Llama 3 8B holds an edge in edge deployment, fast inference, fine-tuning.
Last compared: April 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages