Llama 4 Scout vs Muse Spark 1.1

Meta · US  |  Meta · US · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Both are Meta models. Muse Spark 1.1 is the newer, generally stronger default; reach for Llama 4 Scout when its lower price or a specific cost or latency profile matters more than the latest capabilities.

Llama 4 Scout and Muse Spark 1.1 are both Meta models, so the real question is not which lab to trust but which tier fits your workload and budget. Llama 4 Scout is the 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. Muse Spark 1.1 is meta's first paid, closed-weight frontier model — class-leading agentic tool use at a quarter of rivals' price, but it trails on coding. Since both come from the same lab, the comparison below focuses on the tier-and-cost trade-offs that actually separate them.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecLlama 4 ScoutMuse Spark 1.1
ProviderMeta (US) Meta (US)
ReleasedApril 2025 July 9, 2026
Context window10M (~15,000 pages) 1M (~1,573 pages)
Price (in/out)Open weight (self-host / free) $1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens
Open weight?Yes — self-hostable No — API only
Modalitiestext, image, code text, image, video, code
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M15% 54.1%

Who wins what

Largest advertised context (10M)

Llama 4 Scout

Its 10M window holds about 9.5× more than Muse Spark 1.1's 1M in a single prompt.

Open weights, single-GPU friendly

Llama 4 Scout

Open weights make this possible at all — Muse Spark 1.1 is API-only, so it cannot leave the vendor's servers.

Self-hosted, data-private deployment

Llama 4 Scout

The 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller — and it carries the larger 10M context.

Scaled tool use — 88.1 on MCP Atlas, ahead of Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 (vendor-reported)

Muse Spark 1.1

Meta's first paid, closed-weight frontier model — class-leading agentic tool use at a quarter of rivals' price, but it trails on coding — and it is the newer of the two.

Subagent orchestration — trained to run as a main agent or a subagent that escalates when stuck

Muse Spark 1.1

Muse Spark 1.1 lists subagent orchestration — trained to run as a main agent or a subagent that escalates when stuck among its strengths; Llama 4 Scout does not.

Professional agentic work — 54.7 on JobBench, a wide margin over rivals (vendor-reported)

Muse Spark 1.1

Muse Spark 1.1 lists professional agentic work — 54.7 on JobBench, a wide margin over rivals (vendor-reported) among its strengths; Llama 4 Scout does not.

Lowest cost at scale

Llama 4 Scout

Its weights are open, so at volume you pay for your own hardware instead of Muse Spark 1.1's $1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens.

Largest single-prompt input

Llama 4 Scout

Its 10M window is about 9.5× larger than Muse Spark 1.1's 1M, fitting roughly 15,000 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

Llama 4 Scout

At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts Muse Spark 1.1, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Llama 4 Scout

Larger 10M window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Llama 4 Scout

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Muse Spark 1.1 is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is largest advertised context (10m)

Llama 4 Scout

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is scaled tool use — 88.1 on mcp atlas, ahead of opus 4.8 and gpt-5.5 (vendor-reported)

Muse Spark 1.1

That is its strongest area.

Llama 4 Scout: where it fits

The 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. Released April 2025 by Meta, it is built for largest advertised context (10M), open weights, single-GPU friendly, self-hosted, data-private deployment, and retrieval over very long inputs.

Its trade-offs are real: effective recall degrades far below 10M, and ~15% on long-context multi-needle reasoning. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.

Muse Spark 1.1: where it fits

Meta's first paid, closed-weight frontier model — class-leading agentic tool use at a quarter of rivals' price, but it trails on coding. Released July 9, 2026 by Meta, it is built for scaled tool use — 88.1 on MCP Atlas, ahead of Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 (vendor-reported), subagent orchestration — trained to run as a main agent or a subagent that escalates when stuck, professional agentic work — 54.7 on JobBench, a wide margin over rivals (vendor-reported), and managing its own context: it compacts the 1M window mid-run instead of relying on external windowing.

Its trade-offs: not the coding leader its launch framing implied — Meta's own report concedes it trails Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 on every coding benchmark, the 1M window oversells its recall: 54.1 on MRCR v2 at 1M against GPT-5.5's 74.0, closed weights end the free, self-hostable Llama path — this is the first model Meta has charged for, and uS-only public preview behind a waitlist, and every benchmark is vendor-reported with no third-party replication. At $1.25 in / $4.25 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

Because Llama 4 Scout and Muse Spark 1.1 come from the same lab (Meta), they share the same training philosophy and ecosystem — the decision is purely tier vs. cost. Muse Spark 1.1 is the more capable, more recent option; the other earns its place only when its price or latency profile fits a specific job better. Most teams should default to Muse Spark 1.1 and drop down only with a concrete reason.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Llama 4 Scout or Muse Spark 1.1 better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Llama 4 Scout leans toward largest advertised context (10m) while Muse Spark 1.1 leans toward scaled tool use — 88.1 on mcp atlas, ahead of opus 4.8 and gpt-5.5 (vendor-reported), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, Llama 4 Scout or Muse Spark 1.1?

Llama 4 Scout is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Muse Spark 1.1 is API-metered at $1.25/$4.25 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Llama 4 Scout — 10M vs 1M, about 9.5× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Should I upgrade from Llama 4 Scout to Muse Spark 1.1?

Since both are Meta models, the newer one (Muse Spark 1.1) is usually the better default unless you need a specific cost or latency profile from the other.

Which is newer, Llama 4 Scout or Muse Spark 1.1?

Muse Spark 1.1 — released July 9, 2026, about 15 months after Llama 4 Scout.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.