Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs DeepSeek V3 0324
Updated October 21, 2026. 8 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
vs boards won of 8 shared
Decision reading
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 88.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 42.0 for DeepSeek V3 0324.
Pick DeepSeek V3 0324 when output tokens cost 8.8x less.
Model AClaude Sonnet 5.5Anthropic88.9/1002 independent benchmarksNo cost per solved taskModel BDeepSeek V3 0324DeepSeek42.0/1001 independent benchmarkNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 8
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 87
- DeepSeek V3 0324 only
- 27
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 88.9 against 42.0.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 9.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only DeepSeek V3 0324 has a AA Agentic Index result, 0.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only DeepSeek V3 0324 has a GPQA Diamond result, 61.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only DeepSeek V3 0324 has a AIME result, 52.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only DeepSeek V3 0324 has a MMLU Pro result, 79.5%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1326.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Vals Index result, 70.8%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 takes 1M tokens against 164K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3 0324
Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070, DeepSeek V3 0324 $0.0009 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 88.9 from 2 benchmarks, DeepSeek V3 0324 42.0 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Math, 62.2 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- OTIS Mock AIME: Claude Sonnet 5.5 100.0% against DeepSeek V3 0324 37.8%, 62.2 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 against DeepSeek V3 0324 $1.14 per million output tokens, 8.8x apart.
- Context window
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 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 5.5 | Bars | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 3 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 8 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 42.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LiveBench coding | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 21.2 | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 64.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 92.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 6.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 58.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 59.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 40.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | 39.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 15.2% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 36.1% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1819.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1513 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1817 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1741 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1737 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 56.0 | 9.7 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.2 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 0.8 | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1303 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1265 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1245 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 78.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 30.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 42.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 10.4% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 81.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 59.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 47.1% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 49.6% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| SpireClimb | 1.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $11,165 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 61.6% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 65.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.0% | 4.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 95.6% | 67.6% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 27.2% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 65.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1531 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1331 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 52.2% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 88.6% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 91.7% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| 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 | 100.0% | 37.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 88.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MATH level 5 | Not measured | 75.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 79.5% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.7% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.7% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 71.1% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 82.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 52.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 81.9% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1468 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1326 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1367 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1469 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1389 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1458 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1364 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench design | 85.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 59.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 67.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 41.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 40.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | 64.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMCA | 68.3% | 15.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 50.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 77.0% | Only DeepSeek V3 0324 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1492 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1467 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1287 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1484 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1456 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1535 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1454 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1495 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1289 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1297 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1242 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 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 Sonnet 5.5 | 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
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.0070Fits in one request
DeepSeek V3 0324$0.0009Fits in one request
DeepSeek V3 0324 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.130Fits in one request
DeepSeek V3 0324$0.018Fits in one request
DeepSeek V3 0324 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Claude Sonnet 5.5$0.500Fits in one request
DeepSeek V3 0324$0.069Exceeds the context window
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 5.5 | DeepSeek V3 0324 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | March 24, 2025 |
| Context window | 1M | 164K |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.29 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $1.14 |
| Coding index | 88.9 | 42.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than DeepSeek V3 0324 for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 88.9 on the Vibe Coding Index against 42.0 for DeepSeek V3 0324. Pick DeepSeek V3 0324 when output tokens cost 8.8x less.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V3 0324 costs $0.29 and $1.14. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or DeepSeek V3 0324?
Claude Sonnet 5.5, with 1M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs DeepSeek V3 0324 comparison based on?
8 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5.5'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.