Llama 4 70B 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
Llama 4 70B specs · Yi-Lightning specs- PriceYi-Lightning
Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 70B does not.
- Context windowLlama 4 70B
Llama 4 70B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× 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.
- ModalitiesLlama 4 70B
Llama 4 70B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for Yi-Lightning.
- OpennessLlama 4 70B
Llama 4 70B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Yi-Lightning is API-only.
On balance Llama 4 70B edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Yi-Lightning's 1. Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 70B does not. Llama 4 70B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× 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, Llama 4 70B handles text, vision while Yi-Lightning handles text, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Llama 4 70B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Yi-Lightning is API-only.
Llama 4 70B is the newer of the two, released 6 months after Yi-Lightning, 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 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
| Spec | Llama 4 70B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Other |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Oct 2024 |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 16K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | Pricing not published | $0.14 / 1M tokens |
| Output · 1M | Pricing not published | $0.14 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (Llama 4 Community License) | No |
| 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 $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).
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
- 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.
Llama 4 70B fits when…
- Self-hostable on commodity hardware
- Strong all-rounder
- Mature tooling (vLLM, SGLang)
- Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
- Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
Yi-Lightning fits when…
- Cheap
- Strong Chinese
- Fast
Consider Llama 4 405B
Meta's flagship open-weight model, sparse MoE design competitive with closed-frontier flagships.
Frequently asked
Is Llama 4 70B 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?
Llama 4 70B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.Is Llama 4 70B or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
Both Llama 4 70B 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?
Llama 4 70B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). Yi-Lightning is API-only.When were Llama 4 70B and Yi-Lightning released?
Llama 4 70B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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