Model Comparison
Claude 3 Haiku vs Llama 3.1 405B InstructWhich is better in 2026?
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Claude 3 Haiku is 1.8x cheaper per token.
Verdict: Claude 3 Haiku vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct — which is better?
Claude 3 Haiku (by Anthropic) and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct (by Meta) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.
Claude 3 Haiku outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is better at 7 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, GSM8k, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU). Llama 3.1 405B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
On price, Claude 3 Haiku is roughly 1.8x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3 Haiku also accepts a larger context window (200,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Choose Claude 3 Haiku if…
- cost matters — it's about 1.8x cheaper per token
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Llama 3.1 405B Instruct if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 7 of 7 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Claude 3 Haiku outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is better at 7 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, GSM8k, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU).
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3 Haiku ($0.25/1M tokens) is 3.6x cheaper than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Haiku ($1.25/1M tokens) is 1.4x more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is more expensive than Claude 3 Haiku.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3 Haiku accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Llama 3.1 405B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Claude 3 Haiku can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Claude 3 Haiku supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 405B Instruct does not.
Claude 3 Haiku can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3 Haiku
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3 Haiku is licensed under a proprietary license, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct uses Llama 3.1 Community License.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Llama 3.1 Community License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Claude 3 Haiku was released on 2024-03-13, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is 4 months newer than Claude 3 Haiku.
Mar 13, 2024
2.3 years ago
Jul 23, 2024
1.9 years ago
4mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Claude 3 Haiku is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is available from Lambda, DeepInfra, Fireworks, Bedrock, Together, Hyperbolic, Google, Replicate.
Claude 3 Haiku
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
Claude 3 Haiku
View detailsAnthropic
Detailed Comparison
Interactive Arena
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Haiku and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
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FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Haiku vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.