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Grok 4 vs Llama 4 8B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

Grok 4 specs · Llama 4 8B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceGrok 4

    Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not.

  • Context windowGrok 4

    Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 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.

  • ModalitiesGrok 4

    Grok 4 supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Llama 4 8B.

  • OpennessLlama 4 8B

    Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Grok 4 is API-only.

On balance Grok 4 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Llama 4 8B's 1. Grok 4 publishes pricing ($15.00 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not. Grok 4 accepts 256K tokens vs 128K, 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. They differ in modality coverage, Grok 4 handles text, vision while Llama 4 8B handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Grok 4 is API-only.

Grok 4 is the newer of the two, released 3 months after Llama 4 8B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Grok 4 is usually picked for reasoning and research agent workloads, while Llama 4 8B sees more deployments in local llm and on device. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecGrok 4Llama 4 8B
ProviderxAIMeta
ReleasedJul 2025Apr 2025
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window256K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$3.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$15.00 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2024-11,
Open weightsNoYes (Llama 4 Community License)
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$31.50 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$315 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$540 vs ,

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.

  • Grok 4$1.05
  • Llama 4 8BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

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

Grok 4Llama 4 8B
  • GPQA87.5
Pick Grok 4 if

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 128K for Llama 4 8B.
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Pick Llama 4 8B if

Llama 4 8B fits when…

  • Runs on consumer laptops
  • Broad tooling support
  • Apache-2-adjacent permissiveness for most uses
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
Don't want either?

Consider Grok 3

xAI's first frontier-tier release, established the company's Colossus-trained model line.

See Grok 3 specsGrok 4 vs Grok 3Llama 4 8B vs Grok 3

Frequently asked

  • Is Grok 4 or Llama 4 8B 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 128K for Llama 4 8B.
  • Is Grok 4 or Llama 4 8B better for coding?
    Both Grok 4 and Llama 4 8B 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?
    Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). Grok 4 is API-only.
  • When were Grok 4 and Llama 4 8B released?
    Grok 4 was released by xAI on 2025-07-09. Llama 4 8B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05.
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