# Llama 3.2 3B vs Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct

> Llama 3.2 3B and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.4 vs 28.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-phi-3-small-8k-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 13

## Summary

- They share 13 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 5 categories and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct in 3 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct leads 31.3 to 24.9.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Microsoft |
| Noometry Index | 28.4 | 28.8 |
| Rank | 318 | 310 |
| Context | 131K | — |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | — |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | — |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.1 (#314)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.4 (#313)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | 1102 |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 20.3% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 19.9 (#135)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 21.9% | — |
| BALROG | 10.1% | — |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#225)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.2 (#319)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | 1100 |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 15.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 30.3% |
| Adversarial NLI | — | 58.1% |
| BIG-Bench Hard | — | 79.1% |
| HellaSwag | — | 77% |
| LiveBench | — | 24% |
| WinoGrande | — | 81.5% |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.9 (#213)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 25.4 (#247)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1126 | 1151 |
| LiveBench Math | — | 17.6% |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.1 (#232)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#237)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | 1067 |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | — | 90.7% |
| MMLU | — | 75.7% |
| OpenBookQA | — | 88% |
| TriviaQA | — | 58.1% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.4 (#276)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.6 (#267)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | 1058 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | 1061 |
| LMArena German | 1056 | 1080 |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | 1111 |
| LMArena French | — | 1134 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 966 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 894 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1111 |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.3 (#270)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 52.2 (#287)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | 1087 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 47.2% |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#256)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#262)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1101 | 1088 |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.9 (#302)
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.3 (#279)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1110 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | 1083 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | 1068 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | — |
| LiveBench Language | — | 12.9% |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct?

Llama 3.2 3B and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.4 vs 28.8), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Is Llama 3.2 3B or Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (27.1 vs 27.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct share?

13 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32.