DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Grok 4.20
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads Grok 4.20 on coding, 70.3 to 33.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs 4.2x less per output token ($0.60 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 16 benchmarks have a result for both.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Grok 4.20: which to pick
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for coding: it scores 70.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20.
Pick Grok 4.20 for a larger context window (2M against 1.05M tokens).
- Shared results
- 16
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 only
- 23
- Grok 4.20 only
- 39
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 scores 70.3 against 33.3.
4 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads, 39.5 against 25.7.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a GPQA Diamond result, 88.6%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a AIME result, 96.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a MMLU Pro result, 86.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 leads, 1311 against 1229.
Same board, both measured
General
Vals Index
No call
Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 has a Vals Index result, 61.3%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 takes 2M tokens against 1.05M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.0004, Grok 4.20 $0.0025 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has the number, $0.72.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 70.3 from 4 benchmarks, Grok 4.20 33.3 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 63.8 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 87.7% against Grok 4.20 4.1%, 83.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 $0.60 against Grok 4.20 $2.50 per million output tokens, 4.2x apart.
- Context window
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 takes 1.05M tokens, Grok 4.20 2M.
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 | Grok 4.20 | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 4 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 7 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 16 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index20
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 96.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1664 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 31.8% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 87.7% | 4.1% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.2% | 0.3% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 44.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| SciCode | 55.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 37.9% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | Not measured | 57.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| WeirdML | Not measured | 52.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1622.0 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1667 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1687 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 39.5 | 25.7 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | Not measured | 152.1 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index40
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1144 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1054 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1090 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1045 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | Not measured | 1089 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | Not measured | 1180 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1245 | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench research | 79.5% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench browser | 76.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 50.9% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 57.0% | 28.5% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 44.4% | 7.0% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 45.2% | 13.9% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 14.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 61.8% | 11.7% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | Not measured | 93.0% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $4,663 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 88.6% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 89.1% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 91.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 43.3% | 34.5% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| ARC-AGI | Not measured | 89.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | Not measured | 65.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 46.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 49.0% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | Not measured | 75.0% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 96.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.4% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 71.2% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 46.3% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 86.3% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 77.7% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 54.4% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.7% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 74.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 45.4% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 94.5% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 42.5% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index70
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1311 | 1229 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1303 | 1200 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1357 | 1193 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1330 | 1217 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1358 | 1193 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1332 | 1221 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1165 | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1242 | 1175 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| LiveBench design | 83.4% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 61.3% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.5% | Not measured | Only DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.4% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 39.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 81.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 69.0% | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 |
| DTBench | Not measured | 90.1% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LMCA | Not measured | 38.7% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 22.2% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CL-bench Life | Not measured | 11.9% | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 35 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Grok 4.20 | 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 | SpaceXAI Grok 4.20 |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | DeepSeek | xAI |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | October 17, 2026 | March 31, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 2M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.15 | $1.25 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.60 | $2.50 |
| Coding index | 70.3 | 33.3 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 4 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.72 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 better than Grok 4.20 for coding?
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 for coding: it scores 70.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20. Pick Grok 4.20 for a larger context window (2M against 1.05M tokens).
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Grok 4.20?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Grok 4.20 costs $1.25 and $2.50. Cost per solved task is known for Grok 4.20 only.
Which has the bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Grok 4.20?
Grok 4.20, with 2M tokens against 1.05M.
How many benchmarks is the DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Grok 4.20 comparison based on?
16 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017's coding index rests on 4 independent benchmarks and Grok 4.20's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.