DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon leads DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 on coding, 86.6 to 66.9 on the Vibe Coding Index, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs 16.7x less per output token ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million). Updated November 14, 2026; 45 benchmarks have a result for both.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Gemini 4 Carbon: which to pick
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 66.9 for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017.
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by Design Arena: spreadsheets or Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 45
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 only
- 15
- Gemini 4 Carbon only
- 28
- 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
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon scores 86.6 against 66.9.
4 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon leads, 60.0 against 28.6.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon leads, 1319 against 1294.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
Gemini 4 Carbon
Gemini 4 Carbon leads, 70.5% against 61.3%.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 1.05M tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.0004, Gemini 4 Carbon $0.0070 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 66.9 from 4 benchmarks, Gemini 4 Carbon 86.6 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 26.8 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- FrontierMath, tier 4: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 46.3% against Gemini 4 Carbon 95.1%, 48.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.60 against Gemini 4 Carbon $10.00 per million output tokens, 16.7x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 1.05M 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 V4.1 Flash 1017 | Bars | Gemini 4 Carbon | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 10 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 7 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 8 | ||
| Math | 0 | 4 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 3 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 6 | ||
| General | 2 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 3 | 42 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index010
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 80.4% | 91.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena WebDev | 1664 | 1768 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 31.8% | 63.1% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 87.7% | 89.1% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| SciCode | 55.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Artificial Analysis run) | 33.8% | 65.2% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierCode 2.0 | 28.5% | 40.6% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierSWE | Not measured | 61.2% | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1622.0 | 2374.7 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1564 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1552 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1675 | 1792 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1696 | 1770 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1609 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| GameBench 2 | 69.9 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 | 40.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| CursorBench 4.0 | 47.7% | 60.4% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 28.6 | 60.0 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 159.4 | 169.8 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index17
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1284 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1263 | 1224 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| LiveBench research | 78.6% | 92.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LiveBench browser | 67.2% | 80.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LiveBench long agentic | 38.8% | 72.7% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 57.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 44.4% | 51.8% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 45.2% | 55.8% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 14.2% | 17.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 61.8% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 69.8% | 84.2% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $16,484 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index08
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 89.1% | 90.6% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 43.3% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| HLE-Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 25.3% | 69.1% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| CritPt v2, hard subset (Artificial Analysis run) | 27.5% | 69.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.2% | 96.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| ARC-AGI | 94.5% | 98.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 78.1% | 94.2% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 92.6% | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Chess puzzles | 46.0% | 78.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Mystery game puzzles | 49.0% | 73.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| EBR-bench | Not measured | 87.6% | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1551 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1582 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1545 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Scale run) | 20.5% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| GoBench | 1633 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.4% | 100.0% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 71.2% | 90.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 46.3% | 95.1% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1538 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| MathArena | 46.7% | 85.4% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA-Omniscience | 2.1 | 53.5 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| SimpleQA Verified | 42.5% | 77.7% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1535 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1525 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1542 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1520 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | Not measured | 78.4% | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| PRBench Finance | 47.1% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| PRBench Legal | 47.3% | 53.3% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1294 | 1319 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1283 | 1357 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1250 | 1326 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1264 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1342 | 1434 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1286 | 1348 | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1246 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1231 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench design | 79.8% | 80.2% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index22
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 61.3% | 70.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.5% | 86.5% | Gemini 4 Carbon |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 79.3% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| GDPval-AA | 1746 | 1733 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Furniture assembly | Not measured | 77.5% | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1538 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1539 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1533 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1530 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1534 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1613 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1560 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1569 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1549 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1542 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1527 | Only Gemini 4 Carbon measured |
| MultiChallenge | 74.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Gemini 4 Carbon | 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 V4.1 Flash 1017 costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 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 V4.1 Flash 1017 | Google Gemini 4 Carbon |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 17, 2026 | November 10, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.15 | $2.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.60 | $10.00 |
| Coding index | 66.9 | 86.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 better than Gemini 4 Carbon for coding?
Pick Gemini 4 Carbon for coding: it scores 86.6 on the Vibe Coding Index against 66.9 for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017. Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by Design Arena: spreadsheets or Long context reasoning (AA-LCR), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Gemini 4 Carbon?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Gemini 4 Carbon costs $2.00 and $10.00. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Gemini 4 Carbon?
Neither: both take 1.05M tokens.
How many benchmarks is the DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemini 4 Carbon comparison based on?
45 benchmarks have a result for both models as of November 14, 2026. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Gemini 4 Carbon's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.