Model comparison

Llama 3.2 3B vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 28.4 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.2 3B costs 2.6× 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. 1 shared benchmarks.

Llama 3.2 3B

Summary

They share 1 benchmark with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 5 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Qwen3 8B leads 29.9 to 19.9.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard: 21.9% for Llama 3.2 3B and 42.6% for Qwen3 8B.
Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.

Side by side

Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen3 8B specifications
	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
Provider	Meta	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	28.4	33.3
Released	2024-09-24	2025-04
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	131K
Max output	118K	8K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.05	$0.18
Output $ / M tokens	$0.33	$0.70
Results tracked	18	11

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 27.1 (#314), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
SciCode	—	22.6%
BigCodeBench Instruct	23.4%	—
LMArena Coding	1098	—
BigCodeBench Complete	28.3%	—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 19.9 (#135), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	21.9%	42.6%
BALROG	10.1%	—

Reasoning Llama 3.2 3B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#225), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
CritPt	—	0%
Chess Puzzles	—	5%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1095	—
DTBench	—	59.7%
LMCA	—	8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index	—	136.17

Math Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 29.9 (#213), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	—	56.1%
LMArena Math	1126	—

Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 29.1 (#232), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond	—	56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	4.8%
LMArena Expert	1090	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Llama 3.2 3B: 26.4 (#276), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English	1019	—
LMArena Chinese	1017	—
LMArena German	1056	—
LMArena Russian	949	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Llama 3.2 3B: 56.3 (#270), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following	1089	—

Long Context Qwen3 8B leads

Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#256), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench	—	62.1%
LMArena Longer Query	1101	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Llama 3.2 3B: 24.9 (#302), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Llama 3.2 3B	Qwen3 8B
LMArena Text	1110	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1094	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	595	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1105	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Qwen3 8B?

Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen3 8B?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.

Is Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.4 versus 27.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen3 8B share?

1 benchmark has published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.