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Llama 4 8B 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 8B specs · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not.

  • Context windowLlama 4 8B

    Llama 4 8B 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.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessLlama 4 8B

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

On balance Llama 4 8B edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against Yi-Lightning's 1. Yi-Lightning publishes pricing ($0.14 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 8B does not. Llama 4 8B 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. 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); Yi-Lightning is API-only.

Llama 4 8B 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 8B is usually picked for local llm and on device 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

SpecLlama 4 8BYi-Lightning
ProviderMetaOther
ReleasedApr 2025Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1MPricing not published$0.14 / 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 $0.630
  • 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).

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
  • 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.

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
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Self-hosting and on-prem requirements, open weights (Llama 4 Community License).
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
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 405BYi-Lightning vs Llama 4 405B

Frequently asked

  • Is Llama 4 8B 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 8B accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Is Llama 4 8B or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both Llama 4 8B 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 8B ships open weights (Llama 4 Community License). Yi-Lightning is API-only.
  • When were Llama 4 8B and Yi-Lightning released?
    Llama 4 8B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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