ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Ministral 8B Instruct vs Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

Too close to call on our weighted score (Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct 58, Ministral 8B Instruct 57, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 56). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Mistral AI

    Ministral 8B Instruct

    Released Oct 16, 2024

    57/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.15 / $0.15
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Ministral 8B Instruct

  2. Meta

    Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct

    Released Sep 25, 2024

    58/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.197 / $0.51
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct

  3. Meta

    Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

    Released Jul 23, 2024

    56/100
    • ECI116.6
    • Price$0.152 / $0.167
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct 58/100, Ministral 8B Instruct 57/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 56/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Ministral 8B Instruct on price and Ministral 8B Instruct for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest priceMinistral 8B InstructMinistral 8B Instruct $0.15 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.156 · Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct $0.275 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextMinistral 8B InstructMinistral 8B Instruct 131,072 · Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct 128,000 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsLlama-3.2-11B-Vision-InstructMinistral 8B Instruct: Text · Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct: Text, Images · 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-3.2-11B-Vision-InstructLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct
Price50%897688
Inputs & features30%255025
Context window20%242424
Overall100%57/10058/10056/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.

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-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationMinistral 8B InstructMistral AILlama-3.2-11B-Vision-InstructMetaLlama-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)$0.197$0.152
Output$0.15 (best)$0.51$0.167
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)$0.15 (best)$0.275$0.156
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 1 providersMedian of 2 providersMedian of 9 providers
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens (best)128,000 tokens128,000 tokens
Max output8,192 tokens (best)4,096 tokens4,096 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenMistral Research LicenseOpenOpen
API model ID———
API providers129 (best)
ReleasedOct 16, 2024Sep 25, 2024Jul 23, 2024
Knowledge cutoff—Dec 2023Dec 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-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct$2.99
  • Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$1.85
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Ministral 8B Instruct, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct 58/100, Ministral 8B Instruct 57/100, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 56/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Ministral 8B Instruct on price and Ministral 8B Instruct for long inputs. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Ministral 8B Instruct, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-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); Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct costs $0.197 input / $0.51 output per million tokens (median across 2 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) and $0.275 for Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct (1.8× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Ministral 8B Instruct has not been scored yet, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct has not been scored yet and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct has an ECI of 116.6.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Ministral 8B Instruct, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three 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-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct and 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Ministral 8B Instruct up to 8,192, Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct up to 4,096, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Ministral 8B Instruct accepts text; Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct accepts text and images; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text. Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Yes, all three 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-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct came out Sep 25, 2024; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct Dec 2023, 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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