DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite
Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 94.7% more intelligence, 20.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 52.4% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 22.2 | +94.7% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 94.7% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $365.63 | −20.6% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 20.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 20.14s | 9.59s | −52.4% Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is 52.4% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $0.30 / $2.50 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Speech, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/gemini-3-5-flash-lite · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/gemini-3-5-flash-lite?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill