Claude Opus 5.5 vs DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus
Claude Opus 5.5 leads DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 57.6 to 14.8, and DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs 19.7x less per output token ($1.0142 vs $20.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 33 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Opus 5.5 or DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus: which to pick
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has a coding score, 88.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus for output tokens 19.7x cheaper ($1.0142 vs $20.00 per million).
- Shared results
- 33
- Claude Opus 5.5 only
- 76
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus only
- 12
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Opus 5.5 leads, 57.6 against 14.8.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus has a AA Agentic Index result, 6.8.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Opus 5.5 leads, 1335 against 1187.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has a Vals Index result, 70.2%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Opus 5.5
Claude Opus 5.5 takes 1M tokens against 164K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus
Claude Opus 5.5 $0.014, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Opus 5.5 88.8 from 5 benchmarks, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Intelligence, 42.8 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- ALE-Bench: Claude Opus 5.5 2147.4 against DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus 745.2, 46.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Opus 5.5 $20.00 against DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $1.0142 per million output tokens, 19.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Opus 5.5 takes 1M tokens, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus 164K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Opus 5.5 | Bars | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 4 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 7 | 0 | ||
| General | 13 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 33 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 96.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1807 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 43.5 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 65.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 90.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 66.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 18.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 95.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 70.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 30.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 74.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.8% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| SciCode | 66.9% | 38.0% | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| FrontierCode | 54.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| MirrorCode | 77.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2147.4 | 745.2 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1545 | 1425 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1538 | 1426 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1855 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1753 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1753 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 18.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 57.6 | 14.8 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 168.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index25 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 6.8 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1316 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1308 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1368 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 85.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 80.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 85.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 33.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 45.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 50.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 9.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 79.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 58.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 91.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 14.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Robo-bench (Vals AI) | 14.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 37.1% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| APEX-Agents | 73.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Remote Labor Index | 21.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| SpireClimb | 3.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $9,235 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Search | 1213 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 92.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 49.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.2% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 61.4% | 16.4% | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 90.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 98.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 93.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 67.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 71.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| EBR-bench | 71.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1536 | 1426 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1549 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1535 | 1432 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1345 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1362 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 57.4% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 89.7 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 89.7% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 91.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 95.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1518 | 1402 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1516 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 49.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.1% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 72.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1524 | 1451 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1509 | 1468 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1518 | 1457 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1494 | 1414 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 65.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1335 | 1187 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1385 | 1182 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1461 | 1131 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1397 | 1168 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1476 | 1141 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1390 | 1175 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1329 | 1065 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LiveBench design | 86.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index130
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 80.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 70.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 45.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 57.0% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 84.7% | 69.3% | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| DTBench | 98.9% | 81.3% | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMCA | 68.2% | 28.6% | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| Furniture assembly | 83.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1516 | 1419 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1537 | 1404 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1535 | 1403 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision | 1321 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1519 | 1429 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1507 | 1408 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1582 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1534 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1493 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1508 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1517 | 1435 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1427 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1501 | 1411 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1532 | 1422 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1532 | 1409 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1515 | 1391 | Claude Opus 5.5 |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1317 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1326 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1320 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 22, 2026 | September 22, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 164K |
| Input $/Mtok | $4.00 | $0.3063 |
| Output $/Mtok | $20.00 | $1.0142 |
| Coding index | 88.8 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Opus 5.5 better than DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus for coding?
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has a coding score, 88.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus for output tokens 19.7x cheaper ($1.0142 vs $20.00 per million).
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5.5 or DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus?
Claude Opus 5.5 costs $4.00 per million input tokens and $20.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs $0.3063 and $1.0142. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 5.5 or DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus?
Claude Opus 5.5, with 1M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 5.5 vs DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus comparison based on?
33 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Opus 5.5's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.