Compare / SmolLM3 3B vs Llama 3.2 3B
SmolLM3 3B vs Llama 3.2 3B
Updated November 2026
Verdict
SmolLM3 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 36.7 vs 19.1. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, SmolLM3 3B wins 3 and Llama 3.2 3B wins 0. Both need about 3.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization. Only Llama 3.2 3B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.12 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted.
Pick SmolLM3 3B if…
- you want the strongest model overall
- you mostly write code
- you need math and reasoning
- you need a permissive license (Apache-2.0)
Pick Llama 3.2 3B if…
- you want a hosted API rather than running it yourself
- you work with long documents
Specifications
| SmolLM3 3B | Llama 3.2 3B | |
|---|---|---|
| Small LM Index | 36.7 (likely 34–40) | 19.1 (likely 18–21) |
| Lab | Hugging Face (SmolLM) · Europe | Meta · United States |
| Released | 2025-07-08 | 2024-09-25 |
| Parameters | 3.1B (dense) | 3.2B (dense) |
| Memory at 4-bit | ~3 GB | ~3.4 GB |
| Context window | 64K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input | text | text |
| Reasoning | Hybrid (thinking on/off) | No thinking |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Llama 3.2 Community |
| API price / 1M tokens | Self-host only | $0.12 ($0.050 in, $0.33 out) |
| Hugging Face downloads (30 days) | 547.8K | 966K |
Benchmarks
Higher is better. Bold marks the winner where both labs report a score. ≈ marks the index model's estimate for a score that wasn't reported, ✓ an independent measurement and * a score measured by another lab.
| Benchmark | SmolLM3 3B | Llama 3.2 3B |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU-Pro Knowledge | ≈ 60 | 34.7✓ |
| GPQA Diamond Knowledge | 41.7 | 25.5✓ |
| Humanity's Last Exam Reasoning | ≈ 6 | 5.3✓ |
| AIME Math | 36.7 | 6.7✓ |
| LiveCodeBench Coding | 30.0 | 8.3✓ |
| τ²-Bench Agentic | — | 21.1✓ |
| IFBench Instruction following | — | 26.2✓ |
| Multilingual MMLU Multilingual | 64.1 | — |
| IFEval Instruction following | 71.2 | — |
| MATH-500 Math | — | 48.9✓ |
| AA-LCR Long context | — | 4.3✓ |
Scores are mostly reported by each lab with its own settings, so small gaps are noise. See the methodology. Open in the interactive comparison to add more models.
Questions
Which is better, SmolLM3 3B or Llama 3.2 3B?
SmolLM3 3B scores higher on the Small LM Index: 36.7 vs 19.1. On the 3 benchmarks both labs report, SmolLM3 3B wins 3 and Llama 3.2 3B wins 0.
Which is cheaper to run?
Only Llama 3.2 3B has a hosted API on OpenRouter ($0.12 per million tokens); the other has to be self-hosted. Both need about 3.4 GB of memory at 4-bit quantization.
Which has the longer context window?
Llama 3.2 3B has the longer context window: 128K tokens against 64K.
Can I use SmolLM3 3B and Llama 3.2 3B commercially?
SmolLM3 3B is released under Apache-2.0 and Llama 3.2 3B under Llama 3.2 Community. Apache 2.0 and MIT allow commercial use; other licenses can add conditions, so read the license before shipping a product.