Aya Expanse 8B vs Jamba 1.5 Large
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceJamba 1.5 Large
Jamba 1.5 Large publishes pricing ($8.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not.
- Context windowJamba 1.5 Large
Jamba 1.5 Large 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.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Jamba 1.5 Large edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Aya Expanse 8B's 0. Jamba 1.5 Large publishes pricing ($8.00 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not. Jamba 1.5 Large 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. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
Aya Expanse 8B is the newer of the two, released 2 months after Jamba 1.5 Large, 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 Jamba 1.5 Large sees more deployments in long context and rag. 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 | Jamba 1.5 Large |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | AI21 |
| Released | Oct 2024 | Aug 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 8.2K tokens | 256K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $2.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $8.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | Yes (Jamba Open Model License) |
| 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 $18.00
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $180
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $348
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
- Jamba 1.5 Large$0.600
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
Aya Expanse 8B fits when…
- Multilingual at small size
- Strong cross-lingual transfer
- Efficient on commodity GPUs
Jamba 1.5 Large fits when…
- 256k context
- Efficient long-context inference
- Open weights
- Long-context tasks, handles 256K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Aya Expanse 8B or Jamba 1.5 Large 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?
Jamba 1.5 Large accepts 256K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.Is Aya Expanse 8B or Jamba 1.5 Large better for coding?
Both Aya Expanse 8B and Jamba 1.5 Large 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?
Both ship with open weights. Aya Expanse 8B is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0; Jamba 1.5 Large under Jamba Open Model License.When were Aya Expanse 8B and Jamba 1.5 Large released?
Aya Expanse 8B was released by Cohere on 2024-10-23. Jamba 1.5 Large was released by AI21 on 2024-08-22.
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