Side-by-side comparison of pricing, 12 benchmarks, and generation speed.
| Metric | Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct | Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B |
|---|---|---|
| Input ($/M tokens) | $0.18 | $0.7 |
| Output ($/M tokens) | $0.7 | $0.7 |
Verdict. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct wins the overall benchmark matchup 1–0 across 1 overlapping categories, but raw benchmark score is only one input to the decision.
Pricing. Both models sit in the budget bracket for output-token pricing. At 1.0× the per-million-token cost, Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B is meaningfully cheaper if your traffic is output-heavy (long completions, document generation, agent loops). Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B makes more sense when output volume is low and absolute reasoning quality justifies the premium.
Strengths. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is strongest on Intelligence Index (8.2). Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B leads on Intelligence Index (4.8).
Speed. On throughput, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct generates tokens at 107 tok/s versus 34 tok/s — about 68% faster. On time-to-first-token, Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B responds in 1970ms vs 2260ms, which matters most for chat-style UIs.
Provider. Alibaba and Nous Research sell to overlapping but distinct developer audiences: Alibaba tends to ship frontier reasoning models with premium positioning, while Nous Research often prices more aggressively. Your existing vendor relationships, billing, and SLA preferences may matter as much as the raw numbers above.
Workload cost. Workload scenarios (per million requests at 30M input + 15M output tokens): Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $15.90 ($191/year); Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B costs $31.50 ($378/year). At a smaller 5M-input/2M-output scale (single-developer tool or prototype): Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ≈ $2.30/run, Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B ≈ $4.90/run. At agent/realtime scale (200M input / 100M output per million requests): Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ≈ $106/run, Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B ≈ $210/run. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct becomes more attractive at higher volume — the absolute per-token pricing difference compounds when you ship at scale.
Recommendation. Both models have legitimate use cases — the right answer depends on whether you are optimizing for benchmark ceiling, latency, or unit cost. Start with the cheaper / faster model, evaluate against your specific task, and only switch if the upgrade shows a meaningful lift.
Head-to-head deltas
Data from Artificial Analysis API — 12 benchmarks
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is cheaper overall. Its blended price (3:1 input/output ratio) is $0.31/M tokens vs $0.70/M for Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B.
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct wins 1 out of 12 benchmarks compared to 0 for Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B. See the detailed benchmark chart above for per-category results.
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct generates tokens faster at 107 tok/s vs 34 tok/s. However, Hermes 3 - Llama-3.1 70B has lower time-to-first-token (1.97s vs 2.26s).
Choose based on your priorities: Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct for lower cost, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct for stronger benchmark performance, and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct for faster generation. For latency-sensitive apps, check the TTFT comparison above.