DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus leads Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 14.8 to 9.6, and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs 2.3x less per output token ($0.44 vs $1.0142 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 14 benchmarks have a result for both.
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct: which to pick
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
- Shared results
- 14
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus only
- 31
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct only
- 2
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 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
Neither has a coding score yet.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus leads, 14.8 against 9.6.
Same board, both measured
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 1087.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct takes 262K tokens against 164K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $0.0008, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.0003 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus not benchmarked, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Math, 60.7 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- AA Math Index: DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus 89.7 against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 29.0, 60.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus $1.0142 against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.44 per million output tokens, 2.3x apart.
- Context window
- DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus takes 164K tokens, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 262K.
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 V3.1 Terminus | Bars | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 3 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 14 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 60.4% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| SWE-bench Lite | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| AA Coding Index | 43.5 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 79.8% | 40.3% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| SciCode | 38.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 31.8% | 15.2% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| ALE-Bench | 745.2 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1425 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1426 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 30 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 14.8 | 9.6 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 6.8 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 37.1% | 34.5% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 79.2% | 51.6% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 16.4% | 3.8% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1426 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1432 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 57.4% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Math Index | 89.7 | 29.0 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 89.7% | 29.0% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| LMArena Text: math | 1402 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.1% | 70.6% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| LMArena Text: science | 1451 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1468 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1457 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1414 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1187 | 1087 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1182 | 1046 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1131 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1167 | 1085 | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1141 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1175 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1065 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 57.0% | 32.7% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 69.3% | 32.7% | DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus |
| DTBench | 81.3% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMCA | 28.6% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text | 1419 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1404 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1403 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1429 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1408 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1435 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1427 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1411 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1422 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1409 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1391 | Not measured | 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 V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | 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
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 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 V3.1 Terminus | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | September 22, 2025 | July 31, 2025 |
| Context window | 164K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.3063 | $0.11 |
| Output $/Mtok | $1.0142 | $0.44 |
| 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 V3.1 Terminus better than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding?
Neither model has a coding score yet, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus costs $0.3063 per million input tokens and $1.0142 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.11 and $0.44. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct, with 262K tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks is the DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct comparison based on?
14 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. DeepSeek V3.1 Terminus's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.