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Head-to-head comparison

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct vs Llama Guard 4 12B

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct (Meta) and Llama Guard 4 12B (Meta) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.

Snapshot as of 17 August 2026

As of 17 August 2026, Llama 3.3 70B Instruct holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#174 vs #229); Llama Guard 4 12B is 1.8× cheaper per output token ($0.18/1M vs $0.32/1M); and Llama Guard 4 12B offers the longer context window (1M vs 131K tokens).

Which should you choose?

Choose Llama 3.3 70B Instruct if…

  • you want the stronger overall ModelCap Index position — #174 against #229 (20.6 vs 0.0 points).
  • your workload is prompt-heavy — input tokens cost $0.10/1M against $0.18/1M.
  • you want provider choice — 12 listed API providers against 2.

Choose Llama Guard 4 12B if…

  • API cost matters — $0.18/1M output tokens against $0.32/1M, about 1.8× cheaper.
  • you need the longer context window — 1M tokens against 131K.
  • you want the more recently listed model — Llama Guard 4 12B was listed 30 April 2025, Llama 3.3 70B Instruct 6 December 2024.

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct vs Llama Guard 4 12B: specs, pricing and context

Specification comparison of Llama 3.3 70B Instruct and Llama Guard 4 12B
FieldLlama 3.3 70B InstructMetaLlama Guard 4 12BMeta
ModelCap Index position#174#229
Index score20.60.0
EvidenceMeasuredEstimated
Input price / 1M tokens$0.10$0.18
Output price / 1M tokens$0.32$0.18
Context window131K tokens1M tokens
Max output tokens16K16K
API providers listed122
Weight accessGated accessGated access
Input modalitiesTextImage, Text
First listed6 December 202430 April 2025
PublisherMetaMeta

Evidence: 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards · publisher corpus prior · leave-one-anchor-out calibrated. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.

Benchmark scores: Llama 3.3 70B Instruct vs Llama Guard 4 12B

Public benchmark boards where Llama 3.3 70B Instruct or Llama Guard 4 12B has a published result
BoardLlama 3.3 70B InstructLlama Guard 4 12BLeads
Arena codingArena (LMArena)13461339–1352—Only one result
BFCL V4UC Berkeley (Gorilla)31.9Function calling—Only one result

Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.

Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct vs Llama Guard 4 12B: common questions

Is Llama 3.3 70B Instruct better than Llama Guard 4 12B?

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 17 August 2026: #174 against #229. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it.

Is Llama 3.3 70B Instruct cheaper than Llama Guard 4 12B?

Llama Guard 4 12B is cheaper on output tokens: $0.18/1M against $0.32/1M. Input tokens are $0.10/1M for Llama 3.3 70B Instruct and $0.18/1M for Llama Guard 4 12B. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens.

Which has the bigger context window, Llama 3.3 70B Instruct or Llama Guard 4 12B?

Llama Guard 4 12B has the larger context window: 1M tokens against 131K.

Which is better for coding, Llama 3.3 70B Instruct or Llama Guard 4 12B?

The two models do not share a coding benchmark board on ModelCap yet, so no head-to-head coding score is published; the ModelCap Index position is the closest overall signal.

Are Llama 3.3 70B Instruct and Llama Guard 4 12B open-weight models?

Llama 3.3 70B Instruct: Gated access. Llama Guard 4 12B: Gated access. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.

Where can I run Llama 3.3 70B Instruct and Llama Guard 4 12B?

ModelCap currently lists 12 API providers for Llama 3.3 70B Instruct and 2 for Llama Guard 4 12B, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.

How current is this Llama 3.3 70B Instruct vs Llama Guard 4 12B comparison?

Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 17 August 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.

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