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 | ||
| 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 is Meta's compact model that delivered breakthrough performance for its size class, outperforming the much larger Llama 2 70B on many benchmarks despite being nearly 10x smaller. Its efficiency and strong instruction following made it the most popular starting point for fine-tuning custom models in the open-source community.
View Meta AI profile →Llama 3.1 8B
Llama 3.1 8B is Meta's smallest model in the Llama 3.1 family, designed for environments where computational resources are limited but strong language understanding is still needed. Despite its compact 8 billion parameter size, it maintains a 128K context window and delivers impressive performance on coding, reasoning, and conversational tasks relative to its size. It runs efficiently on a single GPU and is widely used for edge deployment, mobile applications, and cost-sensitive production workloads.
View Meta AI profile →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: March 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages