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Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen4-Max-Preview

Comparing Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Preview across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Meta · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Preview trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

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

Choose Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Choose Qwen4-Max-Preview

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Meta
Qwen4-Max-Preview
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.02 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.03 / M
— / M
Context window
131,072
—

Individual benchmarks

18 reported for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct · 0 for Qwen4-Max-Preview

No common benchmarks found

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Previewdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

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
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen4-Max-Preview
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Fri Nov 13 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen4-Max-Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas Llama 3.1 8B Instruct does not.

Qwen4-Max-Preview 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

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is licensed under Llama 3.1 Community License, while Qwen4-Max-Preview uses a proprietary license.

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

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Proprietary

Closed source

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Qwen4-Max-Preview was released on 2026-11-11.

Qwen4-Max-Preview is 28 months newer than Llama 3.1 8B Instruct.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.3 years ago

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Nov 11, 2026

1 days ago

2.3yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-12-31, while Qwen4-Max-Preview'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 Qwen4-Max-Preview's cutoff date.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Dec 2023

Qwen4-Max-Preview

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Preview side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen4-Max-Preview
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Llama 3.1 8B Instruct vs Qwen4-Max-Preview.

Which is better, Llama 3.1 8B Instruct or Qwen4-Max-Preview?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (Meta) and Qwen4-Max-Preview (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Llama 3.1 8B Instruct compare to Qwen4-Max-Preview 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%.

What are the context window sizes for Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Preview?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct supports 131K tokens and Qwen4-Max-Preview 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 Qwen4-Max-Preview?

Key differences include multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Llama 3.1 Community License vs Proprietary). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Llama 3.1 8B Instruct and Qwen4-Max-Preview?

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is developed by Meta and Qwen4-Max-Preview is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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