Comprehensive side-by-side LLM comparison
Magistral Small 2506 leads with 37.8% higher average benchmark score. Llama 3.1 8B Instruct is available on 9 providers. Overall, Magistral Small 2506 is the stronger choice for coding tasks.
Meta
Llama 3.1 8B was developed as an efficient open-source model, designed to bring capable instruction-following to applications with limited computational resources. Built with 8 billion parameters, it provides a lightweight option for developers seeking reliable performance without the overhead of larger models.
Mistral AI
Magistral Small was created as an efficient reasoning-focused variant, designed to bring analytical capabilities to applications with tighter resource constraints. Built to balance problem-solving depth with practical deployment needs, it extends reasoning-enhanced AI to broader use cases.
10 months newer

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Meta
2024-07-23

Magistral Small 2506
Mistral AI
2025-06-10
Context window and performance specifications
Average performance across 1 common benchmarks

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Magistral Small 2506
Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
2023-12-31
Magistral Small 2506
2025-06-01
Available providers and their performance metrics

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct
Bedrock
Cerebras
DeepInfra
Fireworks
Groq

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Magistral Small 2506

Llama 3.1 8B Instruct

Magistral Small 2506
Hyperbolic
Lambda
Sambanova
Together

Magistral Small 2506