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Llama 4 70B vs Ministral 8B

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

Updated

Llama 4 70B specs · Ministral 8B 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 Ministral 8B.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Llama 4 70B edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Ministral 8B'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 4 70B handles text, vision while Ministral 8B handles text, 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 6 months after Ministral 8B, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 4 70B is usually picked for open source llm and edge deployment workloads, while Ministral 8B sees more deployments in edge deployment 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

SpecLlama 4 70BMinistral 8B
ProviderMetaMistral
ReleasedApr 2025Oct 2024
Modalitiestext, visiontext
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Llama 4 Community License)Yes (Mistral Research 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 4 70BPricing unavailable
  • Ministral 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.

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

Ministral 8B fits when…

  • Edge-optimized
  • Strong 8B-class quality
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 4 70B vs Llama 4 405BMinistral 8B vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 4 70B or Ministral 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?
    Both Llama 4 70B and Ministral 8B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is Llama 4 70B or Ministral 8B better for coding?
    Both Llama 4 70B and Ministral 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?
    Both ship with open weights. Llama 4 70B is licensed under Llama 4 Community License; Ministral 8B under Mistral Research License.
  • When were Llama 4 70B and Ministral 8B released?
    Llama 4 70B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. Ministral 8B was released by Mistral on 2024-10-16.
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