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Llama 4 8B vs o3-mini

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 · o3-mini specs
Verdict by category
  • Priceo3-mini

    o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not.

  • Context windowo3-mini

    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× 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.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessLlama 4 8B

    Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); o3-mini is API-only.

On balance o3-mini edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Llama 4 8B's 1. o3-mini publishes pricing ($4.40 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not. o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K, 1.6× the room for long documents and codebases.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Llama 4 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License); o3-mini is API-only.

Llama 4 8B is the newer of the two, released 2 months after o3-mini, 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 o3-mini sees more deployments in reasoning and math. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecLlama 4 8Bo3-mini
ProviderMetaOpenAI
ReleasedApr 2025Jan 2025
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens200K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$1.10 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$4.40 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff,2023-10
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 $9.90
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs $99.00
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, vs $191

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
  • o3-mini$0.330

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 8Bo3-mini
  • GPQA,79.7
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 o3-mini if

o3-mini fits when…

  • Reasoning at mid-tier cost
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.
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 405Bo3-mini vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 4 8B or o3-mini 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?
    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 128K for Llama 4 8B.
  • Is Llama 4 8B or o3-mini better for coding?
    Both Llama 4 8B and o3-mini 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). o3-mini is API-only.
  • When were Llama 4 8B and o3-mini released?
    Llama 4 8B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. o3-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-01-31.
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