Llama 4 Scout vs GPT-5.4
GPT-5.4 for production reliability. Llama 4 for teams with GPU infrastructure and open-weight requirements.
Llama 4 is open-weight and free to self-host, eliminating per-token costs for teams with GPU infrastructure. Via API (Together, Fireworks, Groq), it's 5-10× cheaper than GPT-5.4. The trade-offs: you manage the infrastructure, latency can be higher on shared inference providers, and quality gaps exist on the most complex tasks.
Side-by-side pricing
| Llama 4 Scout | GPT-5.4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | OpenAI |
| Input price/1M | $0.18 | $2.50 |
| Output price/1M | $0.59 | $15.00 |
| Cache read/1M | — | $0.25 |
| Context window | 128K | 1M |
| Vision | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tool use | ✓ | ✓ |
| Prompt caching | ✗ | ✓ |
| Speed tier | Fast | Standard |
Prices verified 2026-08-20. See changelog for history.
Winner by task
Calculate costs for each model
Frequently Asked Questions
When should I use Llama instead of GPT?
When: (1) Your token volume is high enough to justify GPU infrastructure investment. (2) You have data sovereignty requirements (on-prem only). (3) You need to fine-tune on proprietary data. (4) You want to eliminate vendor lock-in. Llama 4 self-hosted is genuinely competitive with GPT-5.4 on most tasks except the most complex reasoning.
Prices verified 2026-08-20. See methodology for calculation details.