Qwen2.5 72B Instruct vs Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct vs Mistral Large 2.1
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct comes out ahead, 46 to 40 and 38 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen2.5 72B Instruct
40/100- ECI129.0
- Price$1.40 / $5.60
- Context131K
- Our pick
MetaLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct
46/100- ECI116.6
- Price$0.152 / $0.167
- Context128K
Mistral AIMistral Large 2.1
38/100- ECI128.5
- Price$2.00 / $6.00
- Context131K
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is our pick
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 46/100 against Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (40) and Mistral Large 2.1 (38). It leads on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen2.5 72B InstructCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 · Mistral Large 2.1 128.5 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6
- Lowest priceLlama-3.1-8B-InstructLlama-3.1-8B-Instruct $0.156 · Qwen2.5 72B Instruct $2.45 · Mistral Large 2.1 $3.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen2.5 72B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 131,072 · Mistral Large 2.1 131,072 · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 128,000 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsQwen2.5 72B Instruct: Text · Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: Text · Mistral Large 2.1: Text
- Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
| Measure | Weight | Qwen2.5 72B Instruct | Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct | Mistral Large 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 52 | 36 | 51 |
| Price | 25% | 31 | 88 | 27 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Overall | 100% | 40/100 | 46/100 | 38/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen2.5 72B InstructAlibaba (Qwen) | Llama-3.1-8B-InstructMeta | Mistral Large 2.1Mistral AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 129.0 (best) | 116.6 | 128.5 |
| ECI rank | #128 of 148 (best) | #145 of 148 | #130 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 49.2% | 27.0% | 51.3% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 8.1% (best) | 1.7% | 7.8% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $1.40 | $0.152 (best) | $2.00 |
| Output | $5.60 | $0.167 (best) | $6.00 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $2.45 | $0.156 (best) | $3.00 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Alibaba API | Median of 9 providers | Official Mistral API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens (best) | 128,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 8,192 tokens | 4,096 tokens | 16,384 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | Open | Open |
| API model ID | qwen2-5-72b-instruct | — | mistral-large-2411 |
| API providers | 1 | 9 (best) | 2 |
| Released | Sep 19, 2024 | Jul 23, 2024 | Nov 18, 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Apr 2024 | Dec 2023 | Nov 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Qwen2.5 72B Instruct$25.20
- Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct$1.85
- Mistral Large 2.1$32.00
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct or Mistral Large 2.1?
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 46/100 against Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (40) and Mistral Large 2.1 (38). It leads on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct or Mistral Large 2.1?
Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct is cheaper at $0.152 input / $0.167 output per million tokens (median across 9 API providers). Qwen2.5 72B Instruct costs $1.40 input / $5.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price); Mistral Large 2.1 costs $2.00 input / $6.00 output per million tokens (official Mistral API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.156 per million tokens for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct versus $2.45 for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct (16× as much) and $3.00 for Mistral Large 2.1 (19× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 129.0 (#128 of 148), Mistral Large 2.1 128.5 (#130 of 148) and Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 116.6 (#145 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (123.8–130.7 vs 123.8–130.8), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Mistral Large 2.1 51.3%, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 49.2%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 27.0%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 8.1%, Mistral Large 2.1 7.8%, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct 1.7%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen2.5 72B Instruct, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen2.5 72B Instruct 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?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct and Mistral Large 2.1 have the largest context windows (131,072 and 131,072 tokens), against 128,000 for Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct up to 8,192, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct up to 4,096, Mistral Large 2.1 up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen2.5 72B Instruct accepts text; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct accepts text; Mistral Large 2.1 accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Yes, all three publish their weights, so you can self-host them.
Which is newer?
Mistral Large 2.1 is the newest, released Nov 18, 2024. Qwen2.5 72B Instruct came out Sep 19, 2024; Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct came out Jul 23, 2024. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen2.5 72B Instruct Apr 2024, Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct Dec 2023, Mistral Large 2.1 Nov 2024.
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.
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