DeepSeek V3 vs DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus
Updated October 21, 2026. 9 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
DeepSeek V3 has the edge where output tokens cost 1.1x less, and where what matters is Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 9
- DeepSeek V3 only
- 4
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus only
- 35
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus has a AA Intelligence Index result, 14.8.
Directional only
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
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus leads, 1187 against 1120.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 164K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3
DeepSeek V3 $0.0008, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $0.0008 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- DeepSeek V3 not benchmarked, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- General, 16.0 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- DTBench: DeepSeek V3 62.7% against DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus 81.3%, 18.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- DeepSeek V3 $0.9594 against DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $1.0142 per million output tokens, 1.1x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 164K tokens.
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 | DeepSeek V3 | Bars | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 0 | 7 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 9 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 70.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | 30.7% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 43.5 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.8% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 38.0% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 745.2 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1425 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1426 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 14.8 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 6.8 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 37.1% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 37 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 79.2% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 16.4% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 71.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1426 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1432 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | 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 | 48.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1402 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index5 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.1% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1451 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1468 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1457 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1414 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1120 | 1187 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1093 | 1182 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1053 | 1131 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1089 | 1167 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1087 | 1141 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1108 | 1175 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: SVG | 977 | 1065 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | Not measured | 57.0% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 69.3% | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| DTBench | 62.7% | 81.3% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| LMCA | 15.2% | 28.6% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1419 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1404 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1403 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1429 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1408 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1435 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1427 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1411 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1422 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1409 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1391 | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | 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 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V3 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V3 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 | DeepSeek V3 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | DeepSeek |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | December 26, 2024 | September 22, 2025 |
| Context window | 164K | 164K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.2887 | $0.3063 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.9594 | $1.0142 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is DeepSeek V3 better than DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. DeepSeek V3 has the edge where output tokens cost 1.1x less, and where what matters is Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V3 or DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus?
DeepSeek V3 costs $0.2887 per million input tokens and $0.9594 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, DeepSeek V3 or DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus?
Neither: both take 164K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the DeepSeek V3 vs DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. DeepSeek V3's coding index rests on 0 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.