Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)
Which is better for the money: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) by Anthropic or DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) by DeepSeek? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) vs Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback): 10.5% more intelligence, 28.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 163.8% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 40.8 | 45.1 | +10.5% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1… is 10.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $622.28 | $444.60 | −28.6% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1… is 28.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.11s | 16.12s | +163.8% DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1… is 163.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $10.0 | $0.30 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 (Medium, Default Fallback)DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 (Max)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/deepseek-v4-1-flash-1017 · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/claude-sonnet-5-5-medium/deepseek-v4-1-flash-1017?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill