# Command R vs Llama 3.1-8B

> Command R is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.0 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 4.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Command R's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/command-r-vs-llama-3-1-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 22

## Summary

- They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Command R scores higher in 6 categories and Llama 3.1-8B in 2 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Command R leads 30.5 to 8.0.
- Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.15 / $0.60 for Command R.

## Snapshot

| | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Meta |
| Noometry Index | 31.0 | 22.8 |
| Rank | 267 | 347 |
| Context | 128K | 128K |
| Input $/M | $0.15 | $0.05 |
| Output $/M | $0.60 | $0.08 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Command R: 28.8 (#301)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 19.9 (#335)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 37.1% | 32.8% |
| LMArena Coding | 1170 | 1195 |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 45.2% | 40.5% |
| SciCode | — | 13.2% |
| WeirdML | — | 1.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | 17.9% | — |
| HumanEval+ | — | 62.8% |
| MBPP+ | — | 55.6% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Command R: —
- Llama 3.1-8B: 22.3 (#123)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 25.8% |
| BALROG | — | 15.1% |

## Reasoning

- Command R: 13.3 (#329)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 14.5 (#316)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1164 | 1175 |
| DTBench | 46.4% | 50.9% |
| LMCA | 9.2% | 5.4% |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 21.9% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 33.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 116.48 |
| LiveBench | 27.5% | — |
| PIQA | — | 81.2% |

## Math

- Command R: 25.8 (#244)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 9.5 (#311)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1155 | 1179 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 1.7% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 13.7% |
| LiveBench Math | 19.4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 22.9% |
| GSM8K | — | 82.4% |

## Knowledge

- Command R: 30.5 (#219)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#302)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1138 | 1144 |
| MMLU | 65.2% | 56.1% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 27% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 40.6% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 24.7% |
| BoolQ | — | 82.8% |

## Multilingual

- Command R: 35.9 (#240)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 34.2 (#244)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1174 | 1148 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1182 | 1151 |
| LMArena French | 1161 | 1176 |
| LMArena German | 1176 | 1144 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1143 | 1061 |
| LMArena Korean | 1162 | 1053 |
| LMArena Russian | 1174 | 1158 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1150 | 1169 |

## Instruction Following

- Command R: 58.3 (#256)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 59.1 (#253)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1167 | 1159 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 55.6% | — |
| IFEval | — | 74.3% |

## Long Context

- Command R: 36.3 (#226)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#233)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1198 | 1182 |

## Writing & Preference

- Command R: 38.4 (#248)
- Llama 3.1-8B: 29.9 (#285)

| Benchmark | Command R | Llama 3.1-8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1187 | 1187 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1170 | 1154 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1163 | 1172 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 713 |
| WildBench | — | 68.7% |
| LiveBench Language | 16.7% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Command R better than Llama 3.1-8B?

Command R is the stronger model overall, scoring 31.0 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 4.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Command R's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Command R or Llama 3.1-8B?

Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Command R lists at $0.15 and $0.60.

### Is Command R or Llama 3.1-8B better for coding?

Command R scores higher on coding benchmarks: 28.8 versus 19.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 128K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Command R and Llama 3.1-8B share?

22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Command R has 29 scored results on Noometry and Llama 3.1-8B has 43.