Mistral Nemo vs Llama 3.1 8B

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

Mistral Nemo

Mistral

Compact 12B open-weight model co-developed with NVIDIA. Excellent coding performance at minimal cost.

Input$0.150/M
Output$0.150/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForSelf-hosted deployments, cost-sensitive coding, edge deployments
Benchmark48/100

Llama 3.1 8B

Meta

Meta's smallest Llama 3.1 model. Open weights, deploy anywhere. Great for self-hosted applications.

Input$0.050/M
Output$0.100/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForSelf-hosted AI, fine-tuning, budget applications

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioMistral NemoLlama 3.1 8BSavings
Small Script (1K lines) <$0.01 <$0.01 Llama 3.1 8B saves <$0.01 (51%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.08 $0.04 Llama 3.1 8B saves $0.04 (55%)
Large Project (50K lines) $0.41 $0.19 Llama 3.1 8B saves $0.22 (55%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.03 $0.01 Llama 3.1 8B saves $0.02 (63%)

Verdict

Llama 3.1 8B wins on both price and performance — $0.050/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

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