# DeepSeek-R1 vs Llama 3.1 8B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 3.1 8B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/deepseek-r1-vs-llama-3-1-8b
- Last updated: October 14, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

Pick Llama 3.1 8B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek-R1 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Llama 3.1 8B leads overall 51 to 41.19.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is GPQA in Knowledge, with scores of 71.5% and 30.4%.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | DeepSeek | Meta |
| Type | Open Weight | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Non-Reasoning |
| Context | 128K | 128K |
| Overall Score | 41.19 | null |
| Benchmarks Covered | 8 | 7 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $0.55 / $2.19 | N/A |

## Category Breakdown

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 49.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HumanEval | Coming soon | 72.6% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: 64.1 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

### Knowledge

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: 41.5 (Supported · #109/181)
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MMLU | 90.8% | 73% | DeepSeek-R1 |
| GPQA | 71.5% | 30.4% | DeepSeek-R1 |
| MMLU-Pro | 84% | 48.3% | DeepSeek-R1 |
| SimpleQA | 30.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Multilingual

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| MGSM | Coming soon | 68.9% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: 45.9 (#92/128)
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | 83.3% | 80.4% | DeepSeek-R1 |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- DeepSeek-R1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Llama 3.1 8B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | DeepSeek-R1 | Llama 3.1 8B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2024 | 79.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MATH-500 | 97.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GSM8K | Coming soon | 84.5% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, DeepSeek-R1 or Llama 3.1 8B?

Llama 3.1 8B is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### How many benchmarks does DeepSeek-R1 cover on BenchLM?

DeepSeek-R1 currently has 8 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Llama 3.1 8B cover on BenchLM?

Llama 3.1 8B currently has 7 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [DeepSeek-R1 vs DeepSeek-R1-0528](/compare/deepseek-r1-vs-deepseek-r1-0528)
- [Llama 3.1 8B vs DeepSeek-R1-0528](/compare/deepseek-r1-0528-vs-llama-3-1-8b)
- [DeepSeek-R1 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-deepseek-r1)
- [Llama 3.1 8B vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-llama-3-1-8b)

## Explore More

- [DeepSeek-R1 profile](/models/deepseek-r1)
- [Llama 3.1 8B profile](/models/llama-3-1-8b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)