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AnthropicDeepSeekLLM matchup

Claude Sonnet 4.5vs.DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Which one is better?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash performs better than Claude Sonnet 4.5 and is cheaper: Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs 20 times (input) and 25 times (output) as much.

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash ahead
IntelligenceOverall index, 100 points = average
65.4

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Rank 70

99.7

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Rank 29

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash faster
SpeedTokens per second
59

Claude Sonnet 4.5

176

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash cheaper
Price$ per 1M tokens
$6

Claude Sonnet 4.5

$0.26

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Sonnet 4.5 more popular
Popularity0 to 100
50

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Rank 101 of 875

38

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

Rank 298 of 875

Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5 for

No clear advantage

Choose DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash for

AgentsCodingLegalFinanceProductivityHealth

Where is the difference?

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash is ahead in 5 of 8 areas, Sonnet 4.5 in none.

too little data: 3DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash ahead: 5

Areas in the overall index
AgentsDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +3868.0 to 106.4
CodingDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +3761.7 to 98.8
Mathematicsonly DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has a score
Generalonly DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has a score
Multimodalonly DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has a score
Specialist fields
LegalDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +3664.7 to 100.8
FinanceDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +3568.3 to 103.7
HealthDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +2174.3 to 95.5

Bar length shows the gap in index points (full width 15 points, one standard deviation of the reference group). Solid means clearly ahead, hatched not certain yet, a thin grey bar level.

Show 3 more areas that do not count toward the overall index
ProductivityDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash +3367.1 to 99.7
Cybersecurityonly DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has a score
Educationonly DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has a score

Bar length shows the gap in index points (full width 15 points, one standard deviation of the reference group). Solid means clearly ahead, hatched not certain yet, a thin grey bar level.

Which model for which task?

Everyday tasks, translated from the area values above. Each row names the values it rests on.

Writing and debugging codeDeepSeek-V4.1-FlashCoding 61.7 to 98.8
Maths and data analysisopenMathematics without a score for Sonnet 4.5
Agents and workflowsDeepSeek-V4.1-FlashAgents 68.0 to 106.4
Fast chat repliesDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash59 to 176 tokens per second
Security analysisopenCybersecurity without a score for Sonnet 4.5
Many requests on a small budgetDeepSeek-V4.1-Flash$6 to $0.26 per 1M tokens
Finance, legal and medical textsDeepSeek-V4.1-FlashFinance 68.3 to 103.7, Legal 64.7 to 100.8, Health 74.3 to 95.5
Images, screenshots and PDFsopenMultimodal without a score for Sonnet 4.5

See for yourself: same task, one attempt

SVG short test

One SVG task with the same fixed settings for every model, without hidden thinking.

Prompt

Return only one standalone SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle. Use viewBox="0 0 800 600", simple shapes, two clearly visible wheels and a recognizable pelican with a long beak. At most 30 SVG elements and 1800 characters. No Markdown, explanations, comments, scripts, animation, CSS or external resources.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5: SVG short test

Oct 14, 2026 · $0.0105

Test details
Test run
Oct 14, 2026
Provider
anthropic
API model
anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
Output
686 tokens
Reasoning
API reports 0 reasoning tokens
Cost of the attempt
$0.0105
Test round
43b8c5c46830

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: SVG short test

Oct 14, 2026 · $0.0001

Test details
Test run
Oct 14, 2026
Provider
decart/fp4
API model
deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash
Output
590 tokens
Reasoning
API reports 0 reasoning tokens
Cost of the attempt
$0.0001
Test round
43b8c5c46830
Earlier tests

Pelican on a bicycle

Prompt

Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle

Task origin: Simon Willison

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Claude Sonnet 4.5: Pelican on a bicycle
A community classic for free-form SVG drawing.

Oct 1, 2026 · 30 s · $0.04

Test details
Run date
Oct 1, 2026
API provider
openrouter
Requested API model
anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
Reasoning setting
high
Token limit including reasoning
8,192 tokens
Output tokens
2,710 tokens
Cost of the attempt
$0.0408
Response time
30.2 s
API model reported in response
anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5
Pinned endpoint
Anthropic | anthropic/claude-4.5-sonnet-20250929
Temperature
Provider default
Test protocol
community-visual-tests-v1
Technical checks
Passed, not a quality rating

Visually reviewed. This individual test does not establish overall model quality.

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

The response reached the token limit. No complete recording is available.

Oct 5, 2026 · 26 s · $0.0049

Not yet visually reviewed. A successful recording does not confirm correct physics or full compliance with the prompt.

Test details
Run date
Oct 5, 2026
API provider
openrouter
Requested API model
deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash
Reasoning setting
high
Token limit including reasoning
8,192 tokens
Output tokens
8,191 tokens
Cost of the attempt
$0.0049
Response time
25.8 s
API model reported in response
deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash
Pinned endpoint
DeepSeek | deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash-20260910
Temperature
Provider default
Test protocol
community-visual-tests-v1
Technical checks
Failed

Earlier attempts (2)

  • Oct 2, 2026API request failedReasoning setting: high
  • Oct 1, 2026API request failedReasoning setting: high

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash in the overall index

Every model with a place in the overall index, both models of this matchup highlighted. You can add or hide other models.

Overall index (Gradually Meta-Score v4)

20 of 91 models

4 models in this view are measured at a lower reasoning effort than max in the overall index. Dashed column: lower reasoning effort than the top.

Claude Opus 5.5max126.1
Gemini 4 Carbonhigh125.7
Claude Fable 5.1max123.8
Claude Sonnet 5.5max122.8
Gemini 4 Argonhigh122.3
GPT-6 Astramax121.3
GPT-6.1 Solmax119.2
Muse Wonder Fullmax118.3
Claude Opus 5max117.2
Muse Wondermax113.4
Kimi K3.1 Promax112.9
Claude Fable 5max112.5
GPT-6 Solmax110.6
GPT-5.6 Solmax108.7
Muse Spark 1.3max107.4
Gemini 3.7 Flashhigh107.1
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017max106.6
Gemini 3.8 Flashhigh106.5
DeepSeek-V4.1-Flashmax99.7
Claude Sonnet 4.565.4

Popularity compared

How often the models are searched for, used and mentioned, on a scale from 0 to 100.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is more popular than DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: 50 to 38 out of 100.

Over time

Weekly values from October 18, 2026 to November 5, 2026

Claude Sonnet 4.5DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

All data side by side

The better value is bold. For the overall index only when the gap is clear.

MetricClaude Sonnet 4.5DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
Intelligence
Overall indexpoints, 100 = reference group average, higher is better65.499.7
RankRank 70 of 91Rank 29 of 91
Price per 1M tokens
Inputwhat you send$3$0.15
Outputwhat the model writes$15$0.60
Cost per task (own tests)average of 2 tests both passed$0.07$0.008
Speed
Tokens per second59176
Popularity
Popularitysearch, usage and mentions, 0 to 10050Rank 101 of 87538Rank 298 of 875
Technical
Context windowhow much text the model reads at once200,000 tokens≈ 300 A4 pages1 M tokens≈ 1,500 A4 pages
Knowledge cutoffJanuary 2025n/a
ReleasedSeptember 2025Sep 10, 2026
AvailabilityDiscontinuedActive
Open weightsnoyes
  • DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: At peak times (Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, 01:00-04:00 UTC; Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, 06:00-10:00 UTC) the price is $0.30 input and $1.20 output per 1M tokens. The table shows the off-peak price.

Prices without caching or batch discounts · Page count as a rule of thumb from Artificial Analysis

Is there a better choice?

Successor of Sonnet 4.5Claude Sonnet 4.6

Overall index 86.4, rank 44. $3 input and $15 output per 1M tokens.

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Claude Sonnet 4.6
Successor of DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashDeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017

Overall index 106.6, rank 17. $0.15 input and $0.60 output per 1M tokens.

Sonnet 4.5 vs. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Cheaper than DeepSeek-V4.1-FlashClaude Haiku 5.5

Overall index 103.4, rank 20. $0.10 input and $0.50 output per 1M tokens.

DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Claude Haiku 5.5

Shared benchmarks

Single results from the same benchmark version, task and metric. A value is bold only with the same test setup and a clear gap.

A: Claude Sonnet 4.5B: DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash

MedCodeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalClaude Sonnet 4.5: 40.6%DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: 41.2%Vals AIAs of 10/29/2026
MedScribeOverall · higher is betterTest setup not documented as identicalClaude Sonnet 4.5: 84.5%DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: 85.5%Vals AIAs of 10/29/2026
MMMU-ProOverall · higher is betterClaude Sonnet 4.5: 65.2%DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash: 65.6%Artificial AnalysisAs of 11/06/2026

More comparisons

Compare Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash with the models people compare them with most often.

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The most popular comparisons

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  3. 3GPT-6 Luna vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  4. 4Muse Spark 1.3 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  5. 5Claude Haiku 5.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  6. 6Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  7. 7GPT-6 Sol vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  8. 8GPT-6 Astra vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  9. 9Claude Sonnet 5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
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  1. 10Grok 4.7 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  2. 11Claude Opus 5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  3. 12GPT-5.6 Terra vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  4. 13Claude Opus 5.5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  5. 14Claude Haiku 5.5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  6. 15DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. GLM-5.3-Flash
  7. 16Claude Opus 4.6 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  8. 17Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Gemini 3.8 Flash
  9. 18Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  10. 19DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Qwen 3.8 Max 0902
  11. 20GPT-6.1 Sol vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  12. 21DeepSeek-V4-Pro vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  13. 22DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Mistral Large 4
  14. 23DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. MiMo-V2.5-Pro
  15. 24Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  16. 25Claude Haiku 4.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  17. 26Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  18. 27DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. GLM-5.2
  19. 28Gemini 3.6 Flash vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  20. 29Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Claude Haiku 4.5
  21. 30DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. GLM-5.3
  22. 31Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. GPT-6 Luna
  23. 32GPT-5.6 Sol vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  24. 33Claude Opus 4.8 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  25. 34DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Kimi K3
  26. 35Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Qwen 3.8 Max 0902
  27. 36Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
  28. 37Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4-Flash
  29. 38Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Mistral Medium 3.5
  30. 39Claude Sonnet 5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  31. 40Claude Opus 5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  32. 41Grok 4.6 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  33. 42Claude Fable 5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  34. 43Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Grok 4.7
  35. 44Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  36. 45GPT-5.6 Luna vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  37. 46Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. GPT-5.6 Luna
  38. 47Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Mistral Large 4
  39. 48Claude Opus 4.7 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  40. 49Claude Opus 4.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  41. 50Claude Fable 5.1 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  42. 51DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Mistral Medium 3.5
  43. 52DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. MiMo-V2.5
  44. 53DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. GLM-5.1
  45. 54Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. GPT-6.1 Sol
  46. 55Claude Opus 4.5 vs. Claude Sonnet 4.5
  47. 56DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash vs. Mistral Large 3
  48. 57GPT-5.5 vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash
  49. 58Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs. Muse Wonder Full
  50. 59Muse Wonder Full vs. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash