DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab producing some of the strongest open-weight models. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (September 10, 2026) is now its top API model — MIT-licensed, multimodal and 1M-token — and since September 14 DeepSeek routes all V4-Pro requests to it.
Rankings refresh dailyScored on 6 criteriaNo paid rankings
V4-Pro API traffic has been served by V4.1 Flash since September 14, 2026
About $0.30/$1.20 per 1M tokens on hosted APIs — prices vary by host and time of day
5 models
All DeepSeek Models
Every DeepSeek model in the directory, ranked by overall capability score.
DeepSeekBudget
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
DeepSeek's September 10, 2026 release, now its top API model: a natively multimodal, MIT-licensed model with 1M context that DeepSeek says beats its own V4-Pro on coding and agent work — V4-Pro traffic has been routed to it since September 14.
Verdict
DeepSeek's open, cheap new default — V4-Pro now routes to it.
Quality score
84%
Pricing
$0.30/1M in
$1.20/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
1.0M tokens
Released September 10, 2026; previous V4 Flash and V4 Flash Vision endpoints taken offline the same day. From September 14, 2026, requests to deepseek-v4-pro are served by V4.1 Flash at Flash rates until a V4.1-Pro ships. Gateway id deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash; gateway price $0.30/$1.20 per 1M (varies by host; DeepSeek's own API uses peak and off-peak rates). 1,048,576 context, 32,768 max output on the gateway. Weights on Hugging Face, MIT licence. Verified October 10, 2026.
DeepSeek's 1.6T-parameter (49B active) MoE flagship with hybrid sparse attention — near-frontier coding and reasoning at roughly a tenth of closed-rival pricing, MIT-licensed open weights.
Verdict
Best open-weights flagship — near-frontier coding at a tenth of the price.
Quality score
82%
Pricing
$0.43/1M in
$0.87/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Open-weight preview April 24; GA ~July 20, 2026. Off-peak pricing verified on api-docs.deepseek.com; Beijing-business-hours surge doubles it. Legacy deepseek-chat/reasoner endpoints retired July 24, 2026.
A 284B-parameter (13B active) MoE workhorse re-post-trained for agentic and coding tasks — beats the V4-Pro preview on every published agent benchmark at ultra-commodity pricing.
Verdict
Best agentic capability per dollar in the directory.
Quality score
76%
Pricing
$0.14/1M in
$0.28/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Official V4-Flash-0731 release July 31, 2026; weights on Hugging Face, API in public beta. Only DeepSeek model supporting the Responses API. DeepSeek has warned of a future price increase.
Open-source frontier model from DeepSeek that matches GPT-4o class performance at a fraction of the cost — the most disruptive budget option for coding and general tasks.
Verdict
GPT-4o-class coding quality at under $0.30/1M — the best value in the directory.
Quality score
71%
Pricing
$0.27/1M in
$1.10/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
DeepSeek V3 shocked the market on release. At this price point with this capability level, it forces a reconsideration of when premium models are actually worth it.
Open sourceBudgetCodingDeepSeek
Best for
Coding, reasoning, and general tasks at extreme cost efficiency
Open-source reasoning model that matches o1-class performance on math, science, and complex coding at a fraction of the cost — the best open alternative to proprietary reasoning models.
Verdict
Open-source o1-class reasoning at a fraction of the cost.
Quality score
68%
Pricing
$0.55/1M in
$2.19/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
1/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
R1 is a genuine milestone for open-source AI. The reasoning quality is real — the tradeoff is latency, not capability.
ReasoningOpen sourceBudgetDeepSeek
Best for
Math, science, complex reasoning, and multi-step problem solving at budget cost
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DeepSeek FAQ
What is DeepSeek's best model in 2026?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (September 10, 2026). DeepSeek says it beats its own V4-Pro on coding and agent tasks — a self-reported claim — and now serves all V4-Pro API requests with it at Flash rates until a V4.1-Pro ships. The weights are MIT-licensed.
How does DeepSeek compare to Claude and GPT?
It is far cheaper — about $0.30/$1.20 per 1M tokens against $2/$10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5 or GPT-6.1 Sol — and its weights are open. Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra still lead on hard reasoning and long agent runs, and DeepSeek's benchmark claims are not yet independently verified.
Is DeepSeek safe to use?
DeepSeek models are open-weight and can be self-hosted, giving full control over data. The API (api.deepseek.com) processes data through DeepSeek's servers in China — teams with data residency requirements should use self-hosted deployments or US-based providers instead.