# Llama 3.2 3B vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

> Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 29.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/llama-3-2-3b-vs-qwen2-5-7b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.2 3B scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct in 4 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen2.5 7B Instruct leads 48.8 to 24.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is BigCodeBench Complete: 28.3% for Llama 3.2 3B and 46.1% for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.
- Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.33 per million input/output tokens, against $0.17 / $0.70 for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.

## Snapshot

| | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 28.9 | 29.0 |
| Rank | 321 | 320 |
| Context | 131K | 131K |
| Input $/M | $0.05 | $0.17 |
| Output $/M | $0.33 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Llama 3.2 3B: 27.6 (#319)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 36.5 (#208)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 23.4% | 37.6% |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 28.3% | 46.1% |
| LMArena Coding | 1098 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Llama 3.2 3B: 20.1 (#143)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.8 (#124)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | 10.1% | 7.8% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 21.9% | — |

## Reasoning

- Llama 3.2 3B: 21.0 (#228)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.8 (#322)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1095 | — |
| DTBench | — | 47.7% |
| LMCA | — | 6.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 118.51 |

## Math

- Llama 3.2 3B: 32.4 (#214)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 12.6 (#306)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 2.5% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 29.4% |
| LMArena Math | 1126 | — |

## Knowledge

- Llama 3.2 3B: 29.7 (#235)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#286)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 35.5% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 53.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 34.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1090 | — |
| MMLU | — | 72.9% |

## Multilingual

- Llama 3.2 3B: 26.2 (#281)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1019 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1017 | — |
| LMArena German | 1056 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 949 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Llama 3.2 3B: 56.0 (#275)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.2 (#231)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 74.1% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1089 | — |

## Long Context

- Llama 3.2 3B: 33.4 (#261)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1100 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Llama 3.2 3B: 24.7 (#307)
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#195)

| Benchmark | Llama 3.2 3B | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1094 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 595 | — |
| WildBench | — | 73.1% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1105 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Llama 3.2 3B better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct score almost the same on the Noometry Index (28.9 vs 29.0), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?

Llama 3.2 3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.33 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 7B Instruct lists at $0.17 and $0.70.

### Is Llama 3.2 3B or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

### How many benchmarks do Llama 3.2 3B and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.2 3B has 18 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.