Model Comparison

Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is 200.0x cheaper per token.

Want to compare interactively?Try the playground

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

5 benchmarks

Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms in 5 benchmarks (DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Mar 31 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($3.00/1M tokens) is 100.0x more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens).

For output processing, Claude 3.5 Sonnet ($15.00/1M tokens) is 500.0x more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Tue Mar 31 2026 • llm-stats.com
Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Input tokens$3.00
Output tokens$15.00
Best providerAnthropic
Meta
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.03
Output tokens$0.03
Best providerLambda
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude 3.5 Sonnet accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Llama 3.1 8B Instruct's 131,072 tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is limited to 131,072 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Input200,000 tokens
Output200,000 tokens
Meta
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Tue Mar 31 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 8B Instruct does not.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is licensed under a proprietary license, while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct uses Llama 3.1 Community License.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Proprietary

Closed source

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Llama 3.1 Community License

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude 3.5 Sonnet was released on 2024-10-22, while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is 3 months newer than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

Oct 22, 2024

1.4 years ago

3mo newer
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

1.7 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while Claude 3.5 Sonnet's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Llama 3.1 8B Instruct's training data extends to 2023-12-31, but cannot make a direct comparison without Claude 3.5 Sonnet's cutoff date.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

—

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Dec 2023

Provider Availability

Claude 3.5 Sonnet is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is available from Lambda, DeepInfra, Groq, Sambanova, Cerebras, Hyperbolic, Together, Fireworks, Bedrock.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
bedrock logo
AWS Bedrock
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M
google logo
Google
Input Price:Input: $3.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $15.00/1M

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

lambda logo
Lambda
Input Price:Input: $0.03/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.03/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.05/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.05/1M
groq logo
Groq
Input Price:Input: $0.05/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.08/1M
sambanova logo
Sambanova
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M
cerebras logo
Cerebras
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M
hyperbolic logo
Hyperbolic
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M
together logo
Together
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M
fireworks logo
Fireworks
Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M
bedrock logo
AWS Bedrock
Input Price:Input: $0.22/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.22/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Anthropic
Larger context window (200,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher DROP score (87.1% vs 59.5%)
Higher GPQA score (67.2% vs 30.4%)
Higher HumanEval score (93.7% vs 72.6%)
Higher MMLU score (90.4% vs 69.4%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (77.6% vs 48.3%)
Meta
Less expensive input tokens
Less expensive output tokens
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Anthropic
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Meta
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Claude 3.5 Sonnet vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Claude 3.5 Sonnet significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Claude 3.5 Sonnet is made by Anthropic and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is made by Meta. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet scores GSM8k: 96.4%, DocVQA: 95.2%, AI2D: 94.7%, HumanEval: 93.7%, BIG-Bench Hard: 93.1%. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct scores GSM-8K (CoT): 84.5%, ARC-C: 83.4%, API-Bank: 82.6%, IFEval: 80.4%, BFCL: 76.1%.
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is 100.0x cheaper for input tokens. Claude 3.5 Sonnet costs $3.00/M input and $15.00/M output via anthropic. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs $0.03/M input and $0.03/M output via lambda.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet supports 200K tokens and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct supports 131K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (200K vs 131K), input pricing ($3.00 vs $0.03/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Llama 3.1 Community License). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet is developed by Anthropic and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is developed by Meta.