Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct vs Qwen Turbo vs Ministral 8B Instruct

Qwen Turbo is the better all-round choice, scoring 57/100 against Ministral 8B Instruct (42) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (42). It leads on capability, price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond), because Qwen Turbo and Ministral 8B Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Qwen Turbo is cheaper at $0.05 input / $0.20 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Ministral 8B Instruct costs $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider); Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct costs $0.152 input / $0.167 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.087 per million tokens for Qwen Turbo versus $0.15 for Ministral 8B Instruct (1.7× as much) and $0.156 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (1.8× as much).

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond): Qwen Turbo 41.8%, Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2% and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen Turbo 41.8%, Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct, Qwen Turbo and Ministral 8B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen Turbo leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Qwen Turbo has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Ministral 8B Instruct and 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096, Qwen Turbo up to 16,384, Ministral 8B Instruct up to 8,192 tokens.

Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text; Qwen Turbo accepts text; Ministral 8B Instruct accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.

Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct and Ministral 8B Instruct publishes its weights (Mistral Research License) and can be self-hosted; Qwen Turbo is proprietary.

Qwen Turbo is the newest, released Nov 1, 2024. Ministral 8B Instruct came out Oct 16, 2024; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct Dec 2023, Qwen Turbo Apr 2024.

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.