Llama 3.1 70B — free API, OpenAI-compatible, no credit card

Meta's Llama 3.1 70B (`meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct`) is the open-weight workhorse most developers reach for first — strong general reasoning, instruction-following, and coding, at a size you can actually run in production. Through InferAll it's **free** via NVIDIA NIM: no credit card, $0 within the free tier, and it works with the OpenAI SDK you already have. ```python from openai import OpenAI client = OpenAI( base_url="https://api.inferall.ai/v1", api_key="ifu_your_key_here", # get one at inferall.ai/keys — no card required ) response = client.chat.completions.create( model="meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct", messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain the CAP theorem to a backend engineer."}], max_tokens=512, ) print(response.choices[0].message.content) ``` That's the whole integration. The only change from calling OpenAI directly is the `base_url` — your existing code, LangChain chains, and LlamaIndex retrievers all work unchanged. --- ### TypeScript ```typescript import OpenAI from "openai"; const client = new OpenAI({ baseURL: "https://api.inferall.ai/v1", apiKey: process.env.INFERALL_API_KEY, }); const response = await client.chat.completions.create({ model: "meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct", messages: [{ role: "user", content: "Write a TypeScript debounce function." }], max_tokens: 400, }); console.log(response.choices[0].message.content); ``` --- ### Why Llama 3.1 70B **It's the dependable default.** 70B parameters is the sweet spot where a model is genuinely capable across reasoning, summarization, classification, and code — without the latency and cost of frontier models. For the majority of prototyping and production tasks, Llama 3.1 70B is enough. **It's free on NVIDIA NIM.** NVIDIA hosts it on their DGX Cloud infrastructure via NIM (NVIDIA Inference Microservices), which InferAll exposes at $0. There's no inference cost to pass through, so it stays free within the allowance — no credit card required to start. **It's OpenAI-compatible.** You get standard `chat.completion` responses, streaming, tool use, and JSON mode — all working with whatever OpenAI client you already have. Switching from `gpt-4o-mini` to `meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct` is a one-line model-string change. --- ### Already on 3.1? Llama 3.3 70B is the newer drop-in If you want the most refined model in the line, [Meta Llama 3.3 70B](/blog/llama-3-3-70b-free-api) (`meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct`) is the newer iteration — more instruction-following polish and stronger benchmarks at the same 70B size, and it's free on the same NVIDIA NIM tier. It's a drop-in: change `meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct` to `meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct` and nothing else. Many teams start on 3.1 (the widely-known release) and move to 3.3 once they realize it's the same price for a better model. Both are free. Pick whichever you like — or [compare them side by side](/docs) on the same prompt. --- ### Compare against other free models Llama 3.1 70B isn't the only free model on the tier. The same `ifu_` key also calls Llama 3.1 8B (faster), Mixtral 8x7B (mixture-of-experts), and NVIDIA Nemotron 120B (larger, for harder prompts) — all $0. Run one prompt across all of them to pick the right model for your task: ```python for model in [ "meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct", "meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct", "mistralai/mixtral-8x7b-instruct-v0.1", "nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b", ]: resp = client.chat.completions.create( model=model, messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Summarize REST vs gRPC in two sentences."}], max_tokens=200, ) print(f"\n=== {model} ===\n{resp.choices[0].message.content}") ``` The full, current free roster is always one call away — `curl https://api.inferall.ai/ai/v1/models` — so you never hardcode a list that goes stale. --- ### One key, every model The same `ifu_...` key that calls free Llama 3.1 70B also routes to GPT-4.1, Claude Opus 4, and Gemini 2.5 — so when a task needs a frontier model, you switch the model string instead of juggling provider credentials. Free open models for the bulk of the work, premium providers when you need them, one bill. Free trial: 200 requests, no credit card. Get your key at [inferall.ai/keys](https://inferall.ai/keys).