Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Updated October 21, 2026. 21 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 42.0 for DeepSeek V3 0324.
Pick DeepSeek V3 0324 when output tokens cost 13.2x less.
- Shared results
- 21
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 only
- 71
- DeepSeek V3 0324 only
- 14
- Like-for-like categories
- 7 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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, four public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 59.1 against 42.0.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 20.7 against 9.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 15.8 against 0.8.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 81.6% against 61.6%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 88.2% against 52.2%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 leads, 87.4% against 79.5%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1190.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens against 164K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3 0324
Claude Sonnet 4.5 $0.011, DeepSeek V3 0324 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 has the number, $1.16.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 59.1 from 2 benchmarks, DeepSeek V3 0324 42.0 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Math, 25.2 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- OTIS Mock AIME: Claude Sonnet 4.5 77.8% against DeepSeek V3 0324 37.8%, 40.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 $15.00 against DeepSeek V3 0324 $1.14 per million output tokens, 13.2x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.5 takes 1M tokens, DeepSeek V3 0324 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 Sonnet 4.5 | Bars | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 4 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 2 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 0 | ||
| Math | 4 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 5 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 21 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index40
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 74.8% | 42.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| SWE-bench Multilingual | 67.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1394 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 52.1 | 21.2 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 73.0% | 65.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 22.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 39.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 15.2% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GSO-Bench | 14.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| WeirdML | 47.7% | 36.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Cybench | 60.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1488 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1386 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1399 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 20.7 | 9.7 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.7 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 15.8 | 0.8 | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1060 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1050 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1137 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 47.1% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| METR time horizons | 67.4% | 49.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Remote Labor Index | 2.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GDPval | 42.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 52.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| OSWorld | 62.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $3,839 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.6% | 61.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 79.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 65.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 4.7% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 82.3% | 67.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| ARC-AGI | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 13.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| SimpleBench | 54.3% | 27.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Chess puzzles | 10.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 17.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| EBR-bench | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| VPCT | 39.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1471 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 88.2% | 52.2% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.6% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 94.3% | 91.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 41.0 | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 41.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 77.8% | 37.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 23.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 2.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 19.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MATH level 5 | 97.7% | 75.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMArena Text: math | 1449 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.4% | 79.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.1% | 77.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 62.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.0% | 54.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 73.3% | 71.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.7% | 82.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 81.9% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 30.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1448 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1444 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1190 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1173 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1166 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1167 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1158 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1183 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1114 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1204 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 36.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 84.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 41.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 40.7% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| DTBench | 83.2% | 64.8% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| LMCA | 38.8% | 15.5% | Claude Sonnet 4.5 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 50.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 77.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1438 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1459 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1425 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1460 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1427 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1390 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1402 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1459 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1437 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1423 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1475 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1428 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1450 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | 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 0324 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V3 0324 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V3 0324 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 Sonnet 4.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 29, 2025 | March 24, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 164K |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.29 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $1.14 |
| Coding index | 59.1 | 42.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.16 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.5 better than DeepSeek V3 0324 for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.5 for coding: it scores 59.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 42.0 for DeepSeek V3 0324. Pick DeepSeek V3 0324 when output tokens cost 13.2x less.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V3 0324 costs $0.29 and $1.14. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.5 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
Claude Sonnet 4.5, with 1M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs DeepSeek V3 0324 comparison based on?
21 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.5's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and DeepSeek V3 0324's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.