Mercury is the first diffusion large language model (dLLM). Applying a breakthrough discrete diffusion approach, the model runs 5-10x faster than even speed optimized models like GPT-4.1 Nano and Claude 3.5 Haiku while matching their perfor…
Model details →Inception: Mercury vs meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct wins on 3 of 6 axes — pricing and capability skew in its favour for most workloads.
Meta's latest class of model (Llama 3.1) launched with a variety of sizes & flavors. This 8B instruct-tuned version is fast and efficient. It has demonstrated strong performance compared to...
Model details →Side-by-side comparison
| Capability | Inception: Mercury | meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Context window Maximum number of input tokens the model can attend to in a single request. | 128K | 131K | 🏆 meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct |
| Input price (per 1M) Cost per million input tokens billed by the provider. | $0.25 | $0.05 | 🏆 meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct |
| Output price (per 1M) Cost per million output tokens billed by the provider. | $0.75 | $0.08 | 🏆 meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct |
| Tool / function calling First-class support for emitting structured tool calls. | Yes | Yes | Tie |
| Vision input Accepts image inputs alongside text. | — | — | Tie |
| Reasoning mode Internal chain-of-thought / extended-thinking support. | — | — | Tie |
Frequently asked questions
Is Inception: Mercury better than meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct wins on 3 of 6 axes — pricing and capability skew in its favour for most workloads.
What's the price difference between Inception: Mercury and meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct?
Input: $0.25 vs $0.05 per 1M tokens. Output: $0.75 vs $0.08 per 1M tokens.
What context windows do Inception: Mercury and meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct support?
Inception: Mercury supports up to 128K tokens. meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct supports up to 131K tokens.
Do both Inception: Mercury and meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct support tool calling?
Inception: Mercury: yes. meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct: yes.