Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Claude Opus 5 leads DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 on coding, 83.0 to 70.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs 41.7x less per output token ($0.60 vs $25.00 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 36 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Opus 5 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017: which to pick
Pick Claude Opus 5 for coding: it scores 83.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 70.3 for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017.
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for output tokens 41.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $25.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
- Shared results
- 36
- Claude Opus 5 only
- 95
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 only
- 3
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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
Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5 scores 83.0 against 70.3.
6 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 5
Claude Opus 5 leads, 50.8 against 39.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Claude Opus 5 has a AA Agentic Index result, 56.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Opus 5 has a GPQA Diamond result, 93.4%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Opus 5 has a MMLU Pro result, 91.6%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads, 1312 against 1309.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 has a Vals Index result, 61.3%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
Claude Opus 5 $0.018, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Opus 5 has the number, $1.33.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Opus 5 83.0 from 6 benchmarks, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 70.3 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Knowledge, 17.4 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI): Claude Opus 5 53.5% against DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 31.8%, 28.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Opus 5 $25.00 against DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.60 per million output tokens, 41.7x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Opus 5 takes 1M tokens, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 1.05M.
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 | Bars | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 2 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 7 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 1 | ||
| Math | 2 | 1 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 2 | 6 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 24 | 12 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index72
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 90.8% | 96.0% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1689 | 1664 | Claude Opus 5 |
| AA Coding Index | 78.0 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 89.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 97.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 53.5% | 31.8% | Claude Opus 5 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 88.4% | 87.7% | Claude Opus 5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 57.5% | 44.2% | Claude Opus 5 |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 3.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 84.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 84.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 28.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 65.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SciCode | 56.4% | 55.9% | Claude Opus 5 |
| FrontierCode | 53.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 52.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| WeirdML | 91.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2164.6 | 1622.0 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1533 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1711 | 1667 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1680 | 1687 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1662 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SciCode | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 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 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 50.8 | 39.5 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 163.9 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 56.5 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1266 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1306 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1348 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1254 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1279 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1261 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1265 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | Not measured | 1230 | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench research | 88.9% | 79.5% | Claude Opus 5 |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | 76.0% | Claude Opus 5 |
| LiveBench long agentic | 62.1% | 50.9% | Claude Opus 5 |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 12.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.6% | 57.0% | Claude Opus 5 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 45.5% | 44.4% | Claude Opus 5 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 55.3% | 45.2% | Claude Opus 5 |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.2% | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 73.6% | 61.8% | Claude Opus 5 |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 79.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 27.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 47.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 18.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 9.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 65.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 31.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| BALROG | 63.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| PostTrainBench | 35.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $11,182 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Search | 1242 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index41
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 93.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.2% | 89.1% | Claude Opus 5 |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 37.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 89.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 93.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 54.9% | 43.3% | Claude Opus 5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.9% | 93.2% | Claude Opus 5 |
| ARC-AGI | 97.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 90.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 80.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 43.0% | 46.0% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Mystery game puzzles | 59.0% | 49.0% | Claude Opus 5 |
| EBR-bench | 45.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1554 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1523 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1348 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1338 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 98.9% | 99.4% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 85.6% | 71.2% | Claude Opus 5 |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 73.2% | 46.3% | Claude Opus 5 |
| ProofBench | 99.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1533 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1544 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 91.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 87.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 73.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 75.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 72.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 63.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 59.9% | 42.5% | Claude Opus 5 |
| LMArena Text: science | 1531 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1525 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1530 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1501 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index26
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1309 | 1312 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1349 | 1300 | Claude Opus 5 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1338 | 1362 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1329 | 1335 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1335 | 1372 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1324 | 1334 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1311 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1352 | 1243 | Claude Opus 5 |
| LiveBench design | 83.0% | 83.4% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | Not measured | 61.3% | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 74.6% | 79.5% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 76.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 49.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 73.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.0% | 82.7% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| DTBench | 97.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMCA | 64.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 60.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1509 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1518 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1493 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1320 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1508 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1573 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1520 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1517 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1519 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1523 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1507 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1522 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1500 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1517 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1481 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1315 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1400 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1293 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1313 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1516 | Not measured | Only Claude Opus 5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | 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 V4.1 Flash 1017 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 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 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | July 24, 2026 | October 17, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $5.00 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $25.00 | $0.60 |
| Coding index | 83.0 | 70.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.33 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Opus 5 better than DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for coding?
Pick Claude Opus 5 for coding: it scores 83.0 on the Vibe Coding Index against 70.3 for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017. Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for output tokens 41.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $25.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017?
Claude Opus 5 costs $5.00 per million input tokens and $25.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs $0.15 and $0.60. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Opus 5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Opus 5 or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 comparison based on?
36 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Opus 5's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.