DeepSeek V3 vs Muse Spark 1.2
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
DeepSeek V3 scores 70.2 and Muse Spark 1.2 65.1 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking.
Pick DeepSeek V3 when output tokens cost 4.1x less; pick Muse Spark 1.2 when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 164K tokens, or when what matters is Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 9
- DeepSeek V3 only
- 4
- Muse Spark 1.2 only
- 88
- 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, four public coding benchmarks
No call
70.2 against 65.1, from different benchmarks with none in common.
Directional only
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Muse Spark 1.2 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 39.6.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Muse Spark 1.2 has a AA Agentic Index result, 43.2.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Muse Spark 1.2 has a MMLU Pro result, 88.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Muse Spark 1.2
Muse Spark 1.2 leads, 1313 against 1120.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Muse Spark 1.2
Muse Spark 1.2 takes 1.05M tokens against 164K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V3
DeepSeek V3 $0.0008, Muse Spark 1.2 $0.0034 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Muse Spark 1.2 has the number, $0.64.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- DeepSeek V3 70.2 from 1 benchmark, Muse Spark 1.2 65.1 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- General, 32.6 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Design Arena: SVG: DeepSeek V3 976 against Muse Spark 1.2 1285, 38.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- DeepSeek V3 $1.0287 against Muse Spark 1.2 $4.25 per million output tokens, 4.1x apart.
- Context window
- DeepSeek V3 takes 164K tokens, Muse Spark 1.2 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 | DeepSeek V3 | Bars | Muse Spark 1.2 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web design | 0 | 7 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 9 |
CodingDirectional onlyFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index21 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 70.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | 30.7% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 78.2% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1534 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 72.2 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 86.6% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 6.1% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 79.1% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 29.9% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 21.8% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.7% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 69.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 57.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 12.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 60.3% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1505 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1505 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1526 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1543 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 39.6 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 155.1 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index18 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 43.2 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1222 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1210 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1182 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1228 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | Not measured | 1179 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | Not measured | 1135 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | Not measured | 1198 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 67.7% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 36.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 21.3% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 60.6% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.8% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 43.8% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 57.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.8% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 45.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 90.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 86.1% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 90.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 45.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 71.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 74.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 27.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1489 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1475 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1487 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1317 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 48.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3 measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 43.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1484 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1480 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 88.3% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 85.3% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.9% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 80.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 65.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 49.4% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 60.3% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1500 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1496 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1517 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1484 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1120 | 1313 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1093 | 1300 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1054 | 1302 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1089 | 1334 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1087 | 1301 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1108 | 1313 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: SVG | 976 | 1285 | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1284 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 67.1% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 76.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.5% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.7% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 90.1% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 69.8% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 79.0% | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| DTBench | 62.7% | 94.7% | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| LMCA | 15.2% | 48.4% | Muse Spark 1.2 |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1482 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1462 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1436 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1304 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1483 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1476 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1509 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1462 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1495 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1484 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1483 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1502 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1473 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1453 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1443 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1291 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1313 | Only Muse Spark 1.2 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 21 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3 | Muse Spark 1.2 | 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 | Meta Muse Spark 1.2 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Meta |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | December 26, 2024 | August 5, 2026 |
| Context window | 164K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.2574 | $1.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.0287 | $4.25 |
| Coding index | 70.2 | 65.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.64 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is DeepSeek V3 better than Muse Spark 1.2 for coding?
DeepSeek V3 scores 70.2 and Muse Spark 1.2 65.1 on the Vibe Coding Index, but no coding benchmark measured both, so the gap is directional, not a ranking. Pick DeepSeek V3 when output tokens cost 4.1x less; pick Muse Spark 1.2 when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 164K tokens, or when what matters is Design Arena: websites or Design Arena: UI components, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V3 or Muse Spark 1.2?
DeepSeek V3 costs $0.2574 per million input tokens and $1.0287 per million output tokens; Muse Spark 1.2 costs $1.25 and $4.25. Cost per solved task is known for Muse Spark 1.2 only.
Which has the bigger context window, DeepSeek V3 or Muse Spark 1.2?
Muse Spark 1.2, with 1.05M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks is the DeepSeek V3 vs Muse Spark 1.2 comparison based on?
9 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. DeepSeek V3's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Muse Spark 1.2's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.