ModelRefs / DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Opus 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding…
DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Opus 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding…
DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Opus 4: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
Claude Opus 4: Claude Opus 4 is Anthropic's May 2025 hybrid-reasoning model for complex coding, reasoning, multimodal analysis, and long-running agent workflows. The dated claude-opus-4-20250514 snapshot was retired on Anthropic-operated platforms on June 15, 2026 and is retained as a historical evaluation and migration reference.
DeepSeek R1: DeepSeek R1 is DeepSeek's open-source reasoning model, trained with reinforcement learning to produce chain-of-thought reasoning before answering. Released in January 2025 under the MIT license, it matched or exceeded closed reasoning models on several math and coding benchmarks.
Context window: Claude Opus 4 accepts up to 200,000 tokens, DeepSeek R1 up to 128,000. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
Claude Opus 4 vs DeepSeek R1 at a glance
| Attribute | Claude Opus 4 | DeepSeek R1 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Released | 2025-05-22 | 2025-01-20 |
| Context window | 200,000 tokens | 128,000 tokens |
| Input price | $15/M tokens | $0.55/M tokens |
| Output price | $75/M tokens | $2.19/M tokens |
| Licence | Proprietary | MIT |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | Yes, open weights |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
Benchmarks reported for both
| Benchmark | Claude Opus 4 | DeepSeek R1 | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpqa | 79.6 | 71.5 | 2025-05-22 / 2025-01-20 |
Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs use different harnesses, prompts, and dates, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.
Where they differ most
- Coding: Claude Opus 4 60%, DeepSeek R1 66%. DeepSeek R1 leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: Claude Opus 4 78%, DeepSeek R1 76%. Claude Opus 4 leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Opus 4 — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding….
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, DeepSeek R1 or Claude Opus 4?
DeepSeek R1 and Claude Opus 4 target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is DeepSeek R1 cheaper than Claude Opus 4?
Compare $0.00055 vs $0.0150 on this page.