Ministral 8B Instruct vs Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 61/100 against Ministral 8B Instruct (42). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. Ministral 8B Instruct wins on price. 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.

Ministral 8B Instruct is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct costs $0.225 input / $0.69 output per million tokens (median across 4 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 $0.341 for Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct (2.3× as much).

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond): Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 51.8% and Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct 51.8%, Ministral 8B Instruct 27.2%.

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Ministral 8B Instruct and Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Both support tool calling for agent workflows.

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct has the largest context window at 10,000,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Ministral 8B Instruct. Maximum output per response: Ministral 8B Instruct up to 8,192, Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct up to 16,384 tokens.

Ministral 8B Instruct accepts text; Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct accepts text and images. Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct handles the widest range of inputs.

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

Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct is the newest, released Apr 5, 2025. Ministral 8B Instruct came out Oct 16, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Llama 4 Scout 17B Instruct Aug 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.