ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 vs Claude Haiku 3 vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

Claude Haiku 3 comes out ahead, 42 to 32 and 22 on our weighted score, though Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is 7.7× cheaper per token.

  1. Mistral AI

    Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3

    Released May 22, 2024

    22/100
    • ECI109.0
    • Price—
    • Context33K
    Full specs Remove Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3
  2. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 3

    Released Mar 13, 2024

    42/100
    • ECI118.8
    • Price$0.25 / $1.25
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Haiku 3

  3. Meta

    Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

    Released Jul 23, 2024

    32/100
    • ECI116.4
    • Price$0.06 / $0.08
    • Context128K
    Full specs Remove Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 3 is our pick

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 42/100 against Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (32) and Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 (22). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

  • CapabilityClaude Haiku 3Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 3 118.8 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.4 · Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 109.0
  • Lowest priceLlama-3.1-8B-InstructLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.065 · Claude Haiku 3 $0.50 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 unpriced
  • Longest contextClaude Haiku 3Claude Haiku 3 200,000 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 · Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 32,768 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 3Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3: Text · Claude Haiku 3: Text, Images, PDFs · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: Text
  • Self-hostingMistral 7B Instruct v0.3 and Llama-3.1-8B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMistral 7B Instruct v0.3Claude Haiku 3Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)67%263835
Inputs & features20%256025
Context window13%03224
Overall100%22/10042/10032/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. 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.

Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 vs Claude Haiku 3 vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationMistral 7B Instruct v0.3Mistral AIClaude Haiku 3AnthropicLlama-3.1-8B-InstructMeta
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)109.0118.8 (best)116.4
ECI rank#164 of 165#156 of 165 (best)#162 of 165
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions15.2%36.3% (best)27.0%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics0.3%1.8% (best)1.7%
Price per million tokens
Input—$0.25$0.06 (best)
Output—$1.25$0.08 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)—$0.50$0.065 (best)
Long-context rate—Same rateSame rate
Price source—Median of 3 providersMedian of 17 providers
Limits
Context window32,768 tokens200,000 tokens (best)128,000 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens (best)4,096 tokens4,096 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningNoNoNo
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenApache 2.0ProprietaryOpen
API model ID———
API providers1318 (best)
ReleasedMay 22, 2024Mar 13, 2024Jul 23, 2024
Knowledge cutoff—Aug 31, 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.

  • Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3—
  • Claude Haiku 3$5.00
  • Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$0.76
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3, Claude Haiku 3 or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Claude Haiku 3 is the better all-round choice, scoring 42/100 against Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct (32) and Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 (22). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

Which is cheaper, Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3, Claude Haiku 3 or Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?

Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is cheaper at $0.06 input / $0.08 output per million tokens (median across 17 API providers). Claude Haiku 3 costs $0.25 input / $1.25 output per million tokens (median across 3 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.065 per million tokens for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct versus $0.50 for Claude Haiku 3 (7.7× as much). Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Haiku 3 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Haiku 3 118.8 (#156 of 165), Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.4 (#162 of 165) and Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 109.0 (#164 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (111.7–121.4 vs 107.0–121.6), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Claude Haiku 3 36.3%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%, Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 15.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Claude Haiku 3 1.8%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 1.7%, Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 0.3%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3, Claude Haiku 3 and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Haiku 3 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Haiku 3 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct and 32,768 for Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3. Maximum output per response: Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 up to 32,768, Claude Haiku 3 up to 4,096, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 accepts text; Claude Haiku 3 accepts text, images and PDFs; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 3 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 3 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is the newest, released Jul 23, 2024. Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 came out May 22, 2024; Claude Haiku 3 came out Mar 13, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 3 Aug 31, 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 Nov 2, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

Related comparisons