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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

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

Too close to call on our weighted score (Ministral 8B Instruct 42, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 42). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Mistral AI

    Ministral 8B Instruct

    Released Oct 16, 2024

    42/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.15 / $0.15
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Ministral 8B Instruct

  2. Meta

    Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

    Released Jul 23, 2024

    42/100
    • ECI116.6
    • Price$0.152 / $0.167
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Ministral 8B Instruct 42/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 42/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Ministral 8B Instruct for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond), because Ministral 8B Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

  • CapabilityMinistral 8B InstructShared benchmarks: Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2% · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%
  • Lowest priceMinistral 8B InstructMinistral 8B Instruct $0.15 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.156 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMinistral 8B InstructMinistral 8B Instruct 131,072 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsMinistral 8B Instruct: Text · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: Text
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMinistral 8B InstructLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct
CapabilityShared benchmarks50%2727
Price25%8988
Inputs & features15%2525
Context window10%2424
Overall100%42/10042/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationMinistral 8B InstructMistral AILlama-3.1-8B-InstructMeta
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)—116.6
ECI rank—#145 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions27.2% (best)27.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—1.7%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.15 (best)$0.152
Output$0.15 (best)$0.167
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$0.15 (best)$0.156
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 1 providersMedian of 9 providers
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens (best)128,000 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens (best)4,096 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoNo
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoNo
ReasoningNoNo
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenMistral Research LicenseOpen
API model ID——
API providers19 (best)
ReleasedOct 16, 2024Jul 23, 2024
Knowledge cutoff—Dec 2023
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • Ministral 8B Instruct$1.80
  • Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$1.85
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Ministral 8B Instruct or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Ministral 8B Instruct 42/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 42/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Ministral 8B Instruct for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond), because Ministral 8B Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B Instruct or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Ministral 8B Instruct is cheaper at $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 $0.15 per million tokens for Ministral 8B Instruct versus $0.156 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (1× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

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

Which is better for coding?

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

Which has the bigger context window?

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

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

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

Are any of these open source?

Yes, both publish their weights (Mistral Research License), so you can self-host them.

Which is newer?

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

How do you decide the winner?

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.

05 — Keep comparing

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