Compare · updated 2026-11-01
Claude Opus vs DeepSeek Flash
Claude Opus is better at writing, coding, reasoning, maths, translation; DeepSeek Flash is better at quick answers, structured data, long documents. DeepSeek Flash is the cheaper of the two on output.
Measured quality by task
| Task | Claude Opus | DeepSeek Flash | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick answers | 82/100 | 91/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Writing | 94/100 | 87/100 | Claude Opus |
| Coding | 98/100 | 85/100 | Claude Opus |
| Reasoning | 99/100 | 80/100 | Claude Opus |
| Maths | 96/100 | 78/100 | Claude Opus |
| Structured data | 87/100 | 92/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Long documents | 87/100 | 91/100 | DeepSeek Flash |
| Translation | 92/100 | 90/100 | Claude Opus |
Quality is Nivana’s measured score for each kind of task, from weekly pairwise evals judged by models from several labs. Prices are live AI Gateway list prices per million tokens. Updated 2026-11-01. How this is measured.
Price and context
| Claude Opus | DeepSeek Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Lab | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Input per 1M tokens | $4 | $0.3 |
| Output per 1M tokens | $20 | $1.2 |
| Typical chat answer | $0.020 | $0.00129 |
| Context window | 1M | 1.05M |
| Router picks it for | 3 of 24 request types | Fallback only |
Which should you use?
Use the one that wins the kind of work you do most, unless the price gap outweighs the quality gap for easy requests. Or don’t choose: Nivana scores both, and the rest of the pool, on every request and sends it to whichever is best for that request.
Questions
Is Claude Opus better than DeepSeek Flash?
On Nivana’s weekly evals Claude Opus scores higher on 5 of 8 task types (writing, coding, reasoning, maths, translation) and DeepSeek Flash on 3 (quick answers, structured data, long documents). Neither is better at everything.
Which is better for coding, Claude Opus or DeepSeek Flash?
Claude Opus: 98/100 against 85/100 for DeepSeek Flash on Nivana’s coding evals.
Which is better for writing, Claude Opus or DeepSeek Flash?
Claude Opus: 94/100 against 87/100 for DeepSeek Flash on Nivana’s writing evals.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus or DeepSeek Flash?
DeepSeek Flash: $1.2 per million output tokens against $20 for Claude Opus, about 16.7× less. A typical chat answer costs about $0.0013 on DeepSeek Flash and $0.020 on Claude Opus.
Or let the router pick, per request
Nivana sends every message to the model that scores best for it, sets how hard it thinks, and tells you which one answered. 2,000 free credits to start, no card.