Aya Expanse 8B vs Grok 4
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
Updated
Aya Expanse 8B specs · Grok 4 specs- PriceGrok 4
Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not.
- Context windowGrok 4
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 8.2K, 31.3× the room for long documents and codebases.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesGrok 4
Grok 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Aya Expanse 8B.
- OpennessAya Expanse 8B
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Grok 4 is API-only.
On balance Grok 4 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Aya Expanse 8B's 1. Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not. Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 8.2K, 31.3× the room for long documents and codebases.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Aya Expanse 8B handles text while Grok 4 handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Grok 4 is API-only.
Grok 4 is the newer of the two, released 9 months after Aya Expanse 8B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Aya Expanse 8B is usually picked for multilingual and translation workloads, while Grok 4 sees more deployments in reasoning and research agent. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Aya Expanse 8B | Grok 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | xAI |
| Released | Oct 2024 | Jul 2025 |
| Modalities | text | text, vision |
| Context window | 8.2K tokens | 256K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $3.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $15.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | 2024-11 |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | No |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day, vs $31.50
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $315
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $540
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Aya Expanse 8BPricing unavailable
- Grok 4$1.05
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- GPQA,87.5
Aya Expanse 8B fits when…
- Multilingual at small size
- Strong cross-lingual transfer
- Efficient on commodity GPUs
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Grok 4 fits when…
- Real-time X data access
- Strong on benchmarks at launch
- Less restrictive content policy than peers
- Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
- Multimodal needs covering vision.
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Aya Expanse 8B or Grok 4 cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.Which has the larger context window?
Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.Is Aya Expanse 8B or Grok 4 better for coding?
Both Aya Expanse 8B and Grok 4 are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0). Grok 4 is API-only.When were Aya Expanse 8B and Grok 4 released?
Aya Expanse 8B was released by Cohere on 2024-10-23. Grok 4 was released by xAI on 2025-07-09.
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