Model comparison

Llama 3.2 1B vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 20.1 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 1B costs 4.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 5 shared benchmarks.

Llama 3.2 1B

Summary

They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 1B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 8B in 6 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 7.2.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 0.6% for Llama 3.2 1B and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
Llama 3.2 1B is cheaper at $0.027 / $0.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
Qwen3 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 60K.

Side by side

Llama 3.2 1B and Qwen3 8B specifications
	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
Provider	Meta	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	20.1	33.7
Released	2024-09-24	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	60K	131K
Max output	54K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.027	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$0.20	$0.70
Results tracked	22	11

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 1B: 21.1 (#338), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	—	22.6%
BigCodeBench Instruct	8.2%	—
LMArena Coding	1070	—
BigCodeBench Complete	11.3%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 1B: 14.6 (#150), Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	10.8%	42.6%
BALROG	6.6%	—

Reasoning Too close to call

Llama 3.2 1B: 16.2 (#308), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
Chess Puzzles	0%	5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	101.99	136.17
CritPt	—	0%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1044	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%

Math Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 1B: 10.4 (#313), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	0.6%	56.1%
LMArena Math	1086	—

Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 1B: 7.2 (#312), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	23.9%	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1007	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Llama 3.2 1B: 23.8 (#292), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English	973	—
LMArena Chinese	959	—
LMArena German	1014	—
LMArena Russian	941	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Llama 3.2 1B: 52.4 (#290), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1031	—

Long Context Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 1B: 31.9 (#274), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1050	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Llama 3.2 1B: 21.3 (#310), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 1B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1055	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1033	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	200	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1030	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Llama 3.2 1B better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 1B or Qwen3 8B?

Llama 3.2 1B is cheaper. It lists at $0.027 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.

Is Llama 3.2 1B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.0 versus 21.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3 8B does, with 131K tokens against 60K.

How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 1B and Qwen3 8B share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 1B has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.