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Llama 4 8B vs Amazon Nova Lite

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 8B specs · Amazon Nova Lite specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not.

  • Context windowAmazon Nova Lite

    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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.

  • ModalitiesAmazon Nova Lite

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

  • OpennessLlama 4 8B

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

On balance Amazon Nova Lite edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Llama 4 8B's 1. Amazon Nova Lite publishes pricing ($0.24 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not. Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K, 2.3× 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 8B handles text while Amazon Nova Lite handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.

Llama 4 8B is the newer of the two, released 4 months after Amazon Nova Lite, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. Llama 4 8B is usually picked for local llm and on device workloads, while Amazon Nova Lite sees more deployments in customer support 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

SpecLlama 4 8BAmazon Nova Lite
ProviderMetaOther
ReleasedApr 2025Dec 2024
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens300K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$0.060 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$0.24 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Llama 4 Community License)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 $0.540
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $5.40
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $10.44

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 8BPricing unavailable
  • Amazon Nova Lite$0.018

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 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).
Pick Amazon Nova Lite if

Amazon Nova Lite fits when…

  • Very cheap
  • AWS-native
  • Multimodal
  • Long-context tasks, handles 300K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.
  • 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 4 8B vs Llama 4 405BAmazon Nova Lite vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 4 8B or Amazon Nova Lite 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?
    Amazon Nova Lite accepts 300K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.
  • Is Llama 4 8B or Amazon Nova Lite better for coding?
    Both Llama 4 8B and Amazon Nova Lite 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). Amazon Nova Lite is API-only.
  • When were Llama 4 8B and Amazon Nova Lite released?
    Llama 4 8B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. Amazon Nova Lite was released by Other on 2024-12-03.
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