Claude 3 Opus vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is 1000.0x cheaper per token.
Anthropic · Meta · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 6 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
On price, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is roughly 1000.0x 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 benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Claude 3 Opus
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 6 of 6 shared benchmarks
- you process long inputs — it offers a 200,000 token context window
Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
- cost matters — it's about 1000.0x 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.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Claude 3 Opus outperforms in 6 benchmarks (ARC-C, DROP, GPQA, HumanEval, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.
Claude 3 Opus significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Claude 3 Opus ($15.00/1M tokens) is 500.0x more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens).
For output processing, Claude 3 Opus ($75.00/1M tokens) is 2500.0x more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Claude 3 Opus is more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B 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 8B Instruct's 131,072 tokens. Claude 3 Opus can generate longer responses up to 200,000 tokens, while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is limited to 131,072 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Claude 3 Opus supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 8B 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 8B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Claude 3 Opus 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.
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 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Llama 3.1 8B 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
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while Claude 3 Opus'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 Opus's cutoff date.
—
Dec 2023
Provider Availability
Claude 3 Opus 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 Opus
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Claude 3 Opus and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Claude 3 Opus vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.