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Llama 3.1 405B vs Llama 4 70B

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

Updated

Llama 3.1 405B specs · Llama 4 70B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 128K-token context window.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesLlama 4 70B

    Llama 4 70B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Llama 3.1 405B.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Llama 4 70B edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Llama 3.1 405B's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, Llama 3.1 405B handles text while Llama 4 70B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Llama 4 70B is the newer of the two, released 9 months after Llama 3.1 405B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 3.1 405B is usually picked for open source llm and fine tuning workloads, while Llama 4 70B sees more deployments in open source llm and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecLlama 3.1 405BLlama 4 70B
ProviderMetaMeta
ReleasedJul 2024Apr 2025
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Llama 3 Community License)Yes (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, vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, 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.

  • Llama 3.1 405BPricing unavailable
  • Llama 4 70BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

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

Llama 3.1 405BLlama 4 70B
  • MMLU88.6
  • HumanEval89.0
Pick Llama 3.1 405B if

Llama 3.1 405B fits when…

  • Historic milestone for open-weight quality
  • Wide hosting availability
Pick Llama 4 70B if

Llama 4 70B fits when…

  • Self-hostable on commodity hardware
  • Strong all-rounder
  • Mature tooling (vLLM, SGLang)
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider Llama 4 405B

Meta's flagship open-weight model, sparse MoE design competitive with closed-frontier flagships.

See Llama 4 405B specsLlama 3.1 405B vs Llama 4 405BLlama 4 70B vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 3.1 405B or Llama 4 70B 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?
    Both Llama 3.1 405B and Llama 4 70B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Llama 3.1 405B or Llama 4 70B better for coding?
    Both Llama 3.1 405B and Llama 4 70B 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. Llama 3.1 405B is licensed under Llama 3 Community License; Llama 4 70B under Llama 4 Community License.
  • When were Llama 3.1 405B and Llama 4 70B released?
    Llama 3.1 405B was released by Meta on 2024-07-23. Llama 4 70B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05.
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