DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
DeepSeek · Meta · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025
Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
- you want predictable pricing at $0.03/M input and $0.03/M output
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has 6.2B more parameters than DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B, making it 349.4% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Llama 3.1 8B Instruct specifies input context (131,072 tokens). Only Llama 3.1 8B Instruct specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is licensed under MIT, 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.
MIT
Open weights
Llama 3.1 Community License
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B was released on 2025-01-20, while Llama 3.1 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is 6 months newer than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.
Jan 20, 2025
1.6 years ago
6mo newerJul 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B'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 DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date.
—
Dec 2023
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and Llama 3.1 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.