Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp leads Claude Sonnet 4.6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 34.8 to 30.1, and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp costs 11.4x less per output token ($1.32 vs $15.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 14 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp: which to pick
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, 57.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp for output tokens 11.4x cheaper ($1.32 vs $15.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
- Shared results
- 14
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 only
- 104
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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 Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp leads, 34.8 against 30.1.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp leads, 47.5 against 31.8.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a GPQA Diamond result, 85.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a AIME result, 92.3%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a MMLU Pro result, 87.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1284.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp
Claude Sonnet 4.6 $0.011, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp $0.0011 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has the number, $1.68.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 57.3 from 5 benchmarks, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 10.5 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LiveBench coding: Claude Sonnet 4.6 66.6% against DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp 37.6%, 29.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 $15.00 against DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp $1.32 per million output tokens, 11.4x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 takes 1M tokens, DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp 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 Sonnet 4.6 | Bars | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 3 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 2 | ||
| Web design | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 5 | 9 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index21
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 66.6% | 37.6% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1523 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 63.0 | 65.0 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 77.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 39.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 57.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 49.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SciCode | 50.1% | 49.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 53.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 53.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| FrontierCode | 24.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 66.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1503 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1491 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1512 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1527 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1529 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 19 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 30.1 | 34.8 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.8 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 31.8 | 47.5 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1190 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1213 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1212 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1197 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1226 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1177 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench research | 63.6% | 69.2% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| LiveBench browser | 68.0% | 64.0% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| LiveBench long agentic | 23.1% | 39.0% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 51.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 25.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 38.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 60.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 79.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 43.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 9.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| DeepResearch Bench | 54.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| OSWorld | 72.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $7,204 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 85.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 86.4% | 85.4% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.5% | 91.3% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.6% | 34.5% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 87.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 86.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 60.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 23.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 16.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1485 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1500 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1493 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1306 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1311 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 92.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 85.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 45.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1462 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 87.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 82.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 64.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 65.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 77.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 92.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 35.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1470 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 37.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1284 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1269 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1258 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1278 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1234 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1275 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1196 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1235 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench design | 71.8% | 70.7% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 76.1% | 79.5% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 62.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 46.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 60.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| IFBench | 56.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 80.0% | 81.3% | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
| DTBench | 89.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMCA | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| ExploitBench | 23.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1476 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1435 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1283 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1472 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1491 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1428 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1420 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1410 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1440 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1443 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1479 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1444 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1431 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1298 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1307 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1296 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1248 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1195 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1272 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1482 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 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 Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp | 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 Flash Vision Exp costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp 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 4.6 | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | February 17, 2026 | August 21, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $3.00 | $0.44 |
| Output $/Mtok | $15.00 | $1.32 |
| Coding index | 57.3 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.68 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 4.6 better than DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp for coding?
Only Claude Sonnet 4.6 has a coding score, 57.3 on the Vibe Coding Index; DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp for output tokens 11.4x cheaper ($1.32 vs $15.00 per million) and a larger context window (1.05M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp?
Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp costs $0.44 and $1.32. Cost per solved task is known for Claude Sonnet 4.6 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp?
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp comparison based on?
14 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 4.6's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.