Skip to content
VECTOR WIREAI INTELLIGENCE
⌘K
UTC
Models741Deals30d271Policy30d66, 14 pendingSources1,015

Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek-V4-Flash

Anthropic · released

Wins 1 of 7 areas

Coding

DeepSeek · released

Wins 3 of 7 areas

Agents · Reasoning · Following instructions

DeepSeek-V4-Flash wins more areas, narrowly.Claude Sonnet 4.6 is better at coding.

Scores updated · 41 tests both models report · How we compare

Where each one wins

Tests won in each of the seven areas where both have results. Each piece is one test, so a longer bar means more evidence; grey means the two scored within a point of each other.

Math and long documents rest on a single test each.

What it costs

Prices per million tokens, roughly 750,000 words. The bars show the cost of a million tokens read plus a million written.

Claude Sonnet 4.6$3.00 to read · $15.00 to write$18Price from Artificial Analysis
DeepSeek-V4-Flash$0.44 to read · $1.32 to write$1.76Price from Artificial Analysis

DeepSeek-V4-Flash costs 90% less for the same work.

The biggest differences

The three tests each model wins by the widest margin. Scores are out of 100.

Where DeepSeek-V4-Flash pulls ahead

  • Follows unfamiliar, precisely checkable instructionsIFBench+22.6points aheadDeepSeek-V4-Flash79.2Claude Sonnet 4.656.6
  • Research-level physics problemsCritPt+13.5points aheadDeepSeek-V4-Flash16.6Claude Sonnet 4.63.1
  • Real work tasks from 44 professionsGDPVal+10.2points aheadDeepSeek-V4-Flash46.9Claude Sonnet 4.636.7

Where Claude Sonnet 4.6 pulls ahead

  • Avoids making up answers it doesn't knowAA-Omniscience · Non-hallucination+43.3points aheadClaude Sonnet 4.651.6DeepSeek-V4-Flash8.3
  • Hard command-line tasks in a real terminalTerminal-Bench Hard+17.4points aheadClaude Sonnet 4.653DeepSeek-V4-Flash35.6
  • Finds the root cause of IT system incidentsAA IT-Bench SRE+8.3points aheadClaude Sonnet 4.639.8DeepSeek-V4-Flash31.5

Every test, side by side

All 41 tests both models report. The winning score is in its model's colour; marks a score checked independently.

CodingClaude Sonnet 4.6

Full coding ranking

AgentsDeepSeek-V4-Flash

Full agents ranking

ReasoningDeepSeek-V4-Flash

Full reasoning ranking

FactsEven

Full facts ranking

MathEven

Full math ranking

Long documentsEven

Full long documents ranking

Following instructionsDeepSeek-V4-Flash

Full following instructions ranking

Other results15 tests, not counted

Tests outside the eight areas. They are not counted above: several are summary scores built from other tests, or the same test under another name.

Questions people ask

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek-V4-Flash?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash wins three of the seven areas where both have results: agents, reasoning and following instructions. Claude Sonnet 4.6 wins coding. They are level on facts, math and long documents.

Which is better for coding?

Claude Sonnet 4.6. It wins 4 of the 8 coding tests both models report; DeepSeek-V4-Flash wins 2, and 2 are ties.

Which is cheaper?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs $3.00 per million input tokens and $15.00 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-V4-Flash costs $0.44 and $1.32. That makes DeepSeek-V4-Flash about 90% cheaper for the same work.

How do you compare the two?

We use the 41 benchmark tests both models have published scores on. The verdict counts the 26 tests in the eight capability areas, and a gap under one point (ten on rating-style scales) counts as a tie. The other 15 are listed but not counted, because several are summary scores or repeat a test. Each score is the one shown on the model's own page.

Compare Claude Sonnet 4.6 with

Anthropic

Across the field

Compare DeepSeek-V4-Flash with

DeepSeek

Across the field

All comparisons