DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) vs Llama 4 Maverick
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) by DeepSeek or Llama 4 Maverick by Meta? 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
Llama 4 Maverick scores 0.8 points higher (9.3 vs 8.5) but costs 1.7× as much to run the benchmark ($44.0 vs $25.4; both budget class). Pick Llama 4 Maverick when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24).
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) | Llama 4 Maverick | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.5 | 9.3 | +9.4% Llama 4 Maverick is 9.4% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $25.37 | $43.98 | +73.4% Llama 4 Maverick is 73.4% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 11.84s | 10.94s | −7.6% Llama 4 Maverick is 7.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.32 / $0.89 | $0.25 / $0.92 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Llama 4 Maverick vs DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24): 9.4% more intelligence, 73.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 7.6% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Llama 4 Maverick is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Medium) scores 29.90 for $31.2.
DeepSeek V3 (Dec '24)Llama 4 MaverickToday'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-v3/llama-4-maverick · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3/llama-4-maverick?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill