Claude Opus 5 (Max) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Opus 5 (Max) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Claude Opus 5 (Max) scores 16.0 points higher (50.8 vs 34.8) but costs 6.7× as much to run the benchmark ($7275 vs $1081; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Claude Opus 5 (Max) when you need intelligence above 34.8, and DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) when 34.8 is enough.
| Metric | Claude Opus 5 (Max) | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 50.8 | 34.8 | −31.5% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 31.5% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $7,274.74 | $1,081.42 | −85.1% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 85.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 63.35s | 16.08s | −74.6% DeepSeek V4 Flash Vis… is 74.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $5.00 / $25.0 | $0.44 / $1.32 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) vs Claude Opus 5 (Max): 31.5% less intelligence, 85.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 74.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Opus 5 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Claude Opus 5 (Max)DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max)Today's Pareto frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/deepseek-v4-flash-vision · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-opus-5/deepseek-v4-flash-vision?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill