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Llama

Meta open-weight family. Llama 4: multimodal MoE, 10M tokens context (Scout), beats GPT-4o. Free < 700M MAU. Safety tools included.

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Description

What is Llama?

Llama is Meta's family of open-weight language models designed for commercial and research use. From Llama 1 (2023) to Llama 4 (April 2025), models have evolved from text-only to multimodal (text + image + video), with native reasoning, coding, and multilingual capabilities.
Llama 4 introduces Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with context windows up to 10M tokens (Scout), rivaling GPT-4.5, Claude, and Gemini in benchmarks while maintaining computational efficiency. Available free under Llama Community License (restriction: 700M+ MAU requires special license).

Llama 4 Models (April 2025)

Scout (109B total params, 17B active)

  • Context window: 10M tokens (industry leader)
  • Architecture: 16 experts MoE
  • Deployment: Fits in 1 H100 GPU (with int4 quantization)
  • Training: ~40T multimodal tokens
  • Best for: Long-context reasoning, summarization, visual understanding

Maverick (400B total params, 17B active)

  • Context window: 1M tokens
  • Architecture: 128 experts MoE
  • Deployment: 1 H100 DGX host
  • Training: ~22T multimodal tokens
  • Performance: Beats GPT-4o, Gemini 2.0 Flash; comparable DeepSeek v3
  • Best for: Multimodal tasks, reasoning, coding
  • Integration: Used in Meta AI (WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram)

Behemoth (2T total params, 288B active) - In training

  • Architecture: 16 experts MoE
  • Performance: Outperforms GPT-4.5, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.0 Pro
  • Benchmarks: Leader in MATH-500, GPQA Diamond (STEM)
  • Status: Not yet publicly released

Previous Generations

Llama 3.3 70B (Dec 2024): 405B-level performance at fraction of cost
Llama 3.2 (Oct 2024): First multimodal model
Llama 3.1 405B (Jul 2024): First frontier open-source model
Llama 3 (Apr 2024): 8B and 70B params, better reasoning
Llama 2 (Jul 2023): First version with open license
Llama 1 (Feb 2023): Initial release (limited access)

Key Features

Native multimodality:
  • Simultaneous text + image + video understanding
  • Early fusion training (integration from start, no separate encoders)
Extreme context windows:
  • Scout: 10M tokens (industry record)
  • Maverick: 1M tokens
  • Llama 3.x: 128K tokens
Mixture-of-Experts:
  • Only 17B active params per token (of 109B-400B total)
  • Faster and cheaper inference than equivalent dense models
  • Scout: Fits in 1 H100 GPU
Multilingual:
  • 12 languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese
Open-weight:
  • Downloadable and modifiable weights
  • Full fine-tuning permitted
  • On-premise or cloud deployment

Pricing

Free under Llama Community License:
  • Free commercial use (< 700M MAU)
  • Modification and fine-tuning permitted
  • Research without restrictions
Llama 3.3 API pricing (example):
  • Input: $0.1/1M tokens
  • Output: $0.4/1M tokens
  • 10-15x cheaper than GPT-4o/Claude 3.5
License restrictions:
  • Companies 700M+ MAU: require special Meta license
  • EU users/companies: prohibited from using or distributing
  • Acceptable Use Policy: prohibits violence, criminal activity, etc.

Safety Tools

Meta provides free:
Llama Guard 3: Moderation framework (problematic content)
Prompt Guard: Protection against prompt injection
Code Shield: Inference-time insecure code filtering
CyberSecEval: Cybersecurity risk assessment suite
Llama Firewall: Security guardrails for AI systems

Where to Use Llama

Meta AI (integrated):
  • WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram Direct
  • Meta.ai website
  • 40 countries available
Cloud Platforms:
  • AWS Bedrock
  • Azure AI
  • Google Cloud
  • Databricks
  • Snowflake
Inference Providers:
  • Hugging Face
  • Together AI
  • Fireworks AI
  • Groq
  • Cerebras
  • Replicate
  • Ollama (local)
Fine-tuning:
  • Unsloth, Axolotl, LLaMA-Factory
  • AWS, Azure managed services
On-device:
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon integration
  • Smartphones, PCs, VR/AR headsets

Use Cases

Enterprise:
  • Custom chatbots and assistants
  • RAG pipelines with proprietary data
  • Document analysis and summarization
  • Multilingual translation
Development:
  • Code generation and debugging
  • Agentic coding workflows
  • API integration
Content:
  • Text generation
  • Image understanding
  • Video analysis
  • Creative writing
Research:
  • Base for model distillation
  • Architecture benchmarking
  • Academic research

Advantages

Free and open-weight (< 700M MAU)
Extreme context: 10M tokens (Scout)
Native multimodal: text + image + video
Efficient MoE: 17B active vs 400B total
On-premise: Complete data control
Fine-tuning: Full customization
No vendor lock-in
Meta ecosystem: 3B+ users
Safety tools included
Multilingual: 12 languages

Limitations

Not true open source: Training data undisclosed (OSI criticism)
EU restrictions: Prohibited for EU users/companies
700M MAU limit: Successful startups must renegotiate
Hardware requirements: Large models need expensive GPUs
Inferior coding: 40% LiveCodeBench vs 85% GPT-5
Hallucinations: Generates false info like other LLMs
Data cutoff: August 2024
Not reasoning model: Not like o1/o3-mini

Key Features

Llama 4 Scout: 10M token context, MoE 16 experts, fits in 1 H100 GPU

Llama 4 Maverick: 400B params, 17B active, 1M context, beats GPT-4o

Llama 4 Behemoth: 2T params in training, outperforms GPT-4.5 and Claude 3.7

Native multimodal: text + image + video from start

Mixture-of-Experts: 17B active reduces costs vs dense models

Open-weight: download weights, full fine-tuning, on-premise deploy

Extreme context: up to 10M tokens (Scout) - industry leader

Free under Community license (< 700M MAU users)

Multilingual: 12 languages including Spanish

Safety tools: Llama Guard 3, Prompt Guard, Code Shield included

Meta AI integration: WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram (3B+ users)

Cloud platforms: AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks, Snowflake

Inference providers: Hugging Face, Together AI, Groq, Ollama

On-device: Qualcomm Snapdragon for smartphones and headsets

Early fusion multimodality: better than separate encoders

Cost-efficient: $0.1-0.4/1M tokens (10-15x cheaper than GPT-4o)

Fine-tuning frameworks: LoRA, QLoRA, PEFT-based

RAG integration: LangChain, LlamaIndex compatible

Llama 3.3 70B: 405B-level performance at fraction of cost

Training scale: 40T tokens (Scout), 22T tokens (Maverick)

Use Cases

Enterprise chatbots and assistants with proprietary data

RAG pipelines for document analysis

Code generation and debugging workflows

Multilingual content translation (12 languages)

Long-context document summarization (10M tokens)

Image understanding and visual Q&A

Video analysis and content moderation

On-premise AI deployment (data control)

Model distillation to create smaller models

Research and academic experimentation

Fine-tuning for domain-specific tasks

Customer support automation

Content generation for marketing

Legal document analysis

Medical research text processing

Financial data analysis

Social media content moderation

Educational tutoring systems

Synthetic data generation

Agentic workflows with tool calling

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