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Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base are closely matched at -2.6 and -0.3 on the LLM Stats Score.

Meta · Mistral AI · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -2.6 and -0.3.

In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mistral Small 3 24B Base wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

  • you want predictable pricing at $0.02/M input and $0.03/M output

Choose Mistral Small 3 24B Base

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 4 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Meta
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Mistral AI
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
-2.6
#347
-0.3
#335
Reasoning
-3.6
#345
-0.3
#329
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
0 of 4
4 of 4
Input price
$0.02 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.03 / M
— / M
Context window
131,072
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Math
-2.5#313
4.5#282
Finance
-3.0#207
4.9#173
Legal
-3.0#193
8.4#141
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

18 reported for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · 9 for Mistral Small 3 24B Base

4 shared

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base is better at 4 benchmarks (ARC-C, GPQA, MMLU, MMLU-Pro).

Mistral Small 3 24B Base significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Oct 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

15.6B diff

Mistral Small 3 24B Base has 15.6B more parameters than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct, making it 195.0% larger.

Meta
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
8.0Bparameters
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
23.6Bparameters
8.0B
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
23.6B
Mistral Small 3 24B Base

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).

Meta
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Mistral AI
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Tue Oct 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Mistral Small 3 24B Base supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 8B Instruct does not.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.1 Community License, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base uses Apache 2.0.

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

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Llama 3.1 Community License

Open weights

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base was released on 2025-01-30.

Mistral Small 3 24B Base is 6 months newer than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.2 years ago

Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Jan 30, 2025

1.7 years ago

6mo newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while Mistral Small 3 24B Base has a cutoff of 2023-10-01.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has more recent training data (up to 2023-12-31), making it potentially better informed about events through that date compared to Mistral Small 3 24B Base (2023-10-01).

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Dec 2023

2 mo newer
Mistral Small 3 24B Base

Oct 2023

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Mistral Small 3 24B Base
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Mistral Small 3 24B Base.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at -2.6 and -0.3. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is made by Meta and Mistral Small 3 24B Base is made by Mistral AI. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Llama 3.1 8B Instruct compare to Mistral Small 3 24B Base in benchmarks?

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%. Mistral Small 3 24B Base scores ARC-C: 91.3%, GSM8k: 80.7%, MMLU: 80.7%, TriviaQA: 80.3%, MBPP: 69.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct supports 131K tokens and Mistral Small 3 24B Base supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-2.6 vs -0.3), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Llama 3.1 Community License vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Mistral Small 3 24B Base?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is developed by Meta and Mistral Small 3 24B Base is developed by Mistral AI.

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