Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 14.1 to -2.5. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is 6.2x cheaper per token.

Meta · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the overall LLM Stats Score 14.1 to -2.5, ranking #228 overall.

In the 3 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct wins 3; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is roughly 6.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

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

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

cost matters — it's about 6.2x cheaper per token

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

overall performance matters — it scores 14.1 and ranks #228 on LLM Stats
your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 3 exact shared results
you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Better token value: Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared

Index

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Math

-2.1#302 · 6 evals

12.3#226 · 11 evals

Finance

-2.5#197 · 3 evals

15.2#117 · 6 evals

Legal

-2.5#182 · 3 evals

14.8#105 · 5 evals

Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

18 reported for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · 46 for Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

3 shared

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (IFEval, MMLU, MMLU-Pro).

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sun Sep 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens) is 2.7x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.08/1M tokens).

For output processing, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct ($0.03/1M tokens) is 16.7x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is more expensive than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers

Sun Sep 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Input tokens$0.03

Output tokens$0.03

Best providerLambda

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Input tokens$0.08

Output tokens$0.50

Best providerNovita

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

1.0B diff

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct has 1.0B more parameters than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct, making it 12.5% larger.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

8.0Bparameters

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

9.0Bparameters

8.0B

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

9.0B

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Both models have the same input context window of 131,072 tokens. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is limited to 32,768 tokens.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Input131,072 tokens

Output131,072 tokens

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Input131,072 tokens

Output32,768 tokens

Sun Sep 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 8B Instruct does not.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Text

Images

Audio

Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.1 Community License, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 14 months newer than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.1 years ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

11 months ago

1.2yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct'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 Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's cutoff date.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Dec 2023

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

—

Provider Availability

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is available from Lambda, DeepInfra, Groq, Sambanova, Cerebras, Hyperbolic, Together, Fireworks, Bedrock. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Lambda

Input Price:Input: $0.03/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.03/1M

Deepinfra

Input Price:Input: $0.05/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.05/1M

Groq

Input Price:Input: $0.05/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.08/1M

Sambanova

Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M

Cerebras

Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M

Hyperbolic

Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.10/1M

Together

Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M

Fireworks

Input Price:Input: $0.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.20/1M

AWS Bedrock

Input Price:Input: $0.22/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.22/1M

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Novita

Input Price:Input: $0.08/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M

Deepinfra

Input Price:Input: $0.18/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.69/1M

* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

✓ Preferred

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 14.1 to -2.5. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is made by Meta and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. 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 Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct 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%. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.

Is Llama 3.1 8B Instruct cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is 2.7x cheaper for input tokens. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct costs $0.03/M input and $0.03/M output via lambda. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.08/M input and $0.50/M output via novita.

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct supports 131K tokens and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports 131K 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 Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-2.5 vs 14.1), input pricing ($0.03 vs $0.08/M), 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 Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is developed by Meta and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Which is better?

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

At a glance

Capability indexes

Individual benchmarks

Human preference

Pricing Analysis

Model Size

Context Window

Input capabilities

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

License

Release Timeline

Knowledge Cutoff

Provider Availability

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Outputs Comparison

Judge for yourself.

FAQ

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

How does Llama 3.1 8B Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

Is Llama 3.1 8B Instruct cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

What are the main differences between Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Who makes Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

More Llama 3.1 8B Instruct comparisons

More Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct comparisons

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Which is better?

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

At a glance

Capability indexes

Individual benchmarks

Human preference

Pricing Analysis

Model Size

Context Window

Input capabilities

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

License

Release Timeline

Knowledge Cutoff

Provider Availability

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Outputs Comparison

Judge for yourself.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

How does Llama 3.1 8B Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

Is Llama 3.1 8B Instruct cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

What are the main differences between Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Who makes Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Related comparisons

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