Llama 3.2 3B Instruct vs Nova Micro: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct is developed by Meta, while Nova Micro comes from Amazon. Llama 3.2 3B Instruct was released in September 2024, and Nova Micro followed 2 months later in November 2024. Llama 3.2 3B Instruct has a published size of about 3 billion parameters; Amazon has not disclosed the parameter count of Nova Micro.
The two models share 6 published benchmarks. Nova Micro leads on 6 of them. The widest gaps are on MATH, where Nova Micro scores 69.3% against 48.0%; GSM8k, where Nova Micro scores 92.3% against 77.7%. Averaged across everything we track, Llama 3.2 3B Instruct sits at 55.6% and Nova Micro at 67.0%.
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct is the cheaper API at $0.01 per million input tokens and $0.02 per million output tokens, roughly 3 times cheaper than Nova Micro at $0.03 and $0.14. Both accept a context window of about 128K tokens.
| Characteristic | Llama 3.2 3B Instruct | Nova Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Meta | Amazon |
| Release Date | September 25, 2024 | November 20, 2024 |
| Parameters | 3B | — |
| Multimodal | No | No |
| Context (input) | 128K | 128K |
| Context (output) | 128K | 128K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.01 | $0.03 |
| Output Price / 1M | $0.02 | $0.14 |
| Average Score | 55.6% | 67.0% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| MATH | 48.0% | 69.3% |
| GSM8k | 77.7% | 92.3% |
| MMLU | 63.4% | 77.6% |
| ARC-C | 78.6% | 90.2% |
| IFEval | 77.4% | 87.2% |
| GPQA | 32.8% | 40.0% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Both models show equal results — the choice depends on your specific use case.
Both models show comparable average scores: Llama 3.2 3B Instruct — 0.6, Nova Micro — 0.7.
Llama 3.2 3B Instruct is 5.7x cheaper: input $0.01/1M vs $0.03/1M tokens.
Same context size: 128K tokens.
Nova Micro is newer: released 11/20/2024 vs 9/25/2024.
More About These Models
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Llama 3.2 3B Instruct or Nova Micro?
Which model is cheaper — Llama 3.2 3B Instruct or Nova Micro?
Which has a larger context window — Llama 3.2 3B Instruct or Nova Micro?
The Llama 3.2 3B Instruct and Nova Micro comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Llama 3.2 3B Instruct or Nova Micro page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.