Claude 3 Opus vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Claude 3 Opus and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct are closely matched at 9.9 and 14.7 on the LLM Stats Score. Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is 33.7x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Meta · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3 Opus and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 9.9 and 14.7.
In the 8 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Llama 3.1 405B Instruct wins 8; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
On price, Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is roughly 33.7x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Claude 3 Opus also accepts a larger context window (200,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3 Opus
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 8 of 8 exact shared results
- cost matters — it's about 33.7x cheaper per token
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2024
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
11 reported for Claude 3 Opus · 18 for Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is better at 8 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, GSM8k, HumanEval, MATH, MMLU, MMLU-Pro).
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3 Opus ($15.00/1M tokens) is 16.9x more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Opus ($75.00/1M tokens) is 84.3x more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct ($0.89/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3 Opus is more expensive than Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Claude 3 Opus accepts 200,000 input tokens compared to Llama 3.1 405B Instruct's 128,000 tokens. Claude 3 Opus can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Claude 3 Opus supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 405B Instruct does not.
Claude 3 Opus can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Claude 3 Opus
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus was released on 2024-02-29, while Llama 3.1 405B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is 5 months newer than Claude 3 Opus.
Feb 29, 2024
2.5 years ago
Jul 23, 2024
2.1 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 Opus is available from Anthropic, Bedrock, Google. Llama 3.1 405B Instruct is available from Lambda, DeepInfra, Fireworks, Bedrock, Together, Hyperbolic, Google, Replicate.
Claude 3 Opus
Llama 3.1 405B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Opus and Llama 3.1 405B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Llama 3.1 405B Instruct.