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Aya Expanse 8B vs Yi-Lightning

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 · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not.

  • Context windowYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning accepts 16K tokens vs 8.2K, 2.0× 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.

  • OpennessAya Expanse 8B

    Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

On balance Yi-Lightning edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Aya Expanse 8B's 1. Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Aya Expanse 8B does not. Yi-Lightning accepts 16K tokens vs 8.2K, 2.0× 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. Aya Expanse 8B ships open weights (CC-BY-NC 4.0); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Aya Expanse 8B is usually picked for multilingual and translation workloads, while Yi-Lightning sees more deployments in chinese llm and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecAya Expanse 8BYi-Lightning
ProviderCohereOther
ReleasedOct 2024Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window8.2K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (CC-BY-NC 4.0)No
API availableYesYes

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 $0.630
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $6.30
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $21.84

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).

Price calculator

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
  • Yi-Lightning$0.021

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

Benchmark scores not yet available. We only publish numbers we can source from official model cards or independent leaderboards, see methodology.
Pick Aya Expanse 8B if

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).
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
  • Long-context tasks, handles 16K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
Don't want either?

Consider Command R+ (08-2024)

Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.

See Command R+ (08-2024) specsAya Expanse 8B vs Command R+ (08-2024)Yi-Lightning vs Command R+ (08-2024)

Frequently asked

  • Is Aya Expanse 8B or Yi-Lightning 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?
    Yi-Lightning accepts 16K tokens vs 8.2K for Aya Expanse 8B.
  • Is Aya Expanse 8B or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both Aya Expanse 8B and Yi-Lightning 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). Yi-Lightning is API-only.
  • When were Aya Expanse 8B and Yi-Lightning released?
    Aya Expanse 8B was released by Cohere on 2024-10-23. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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