Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V3
Sonnet strikes back. The price-performance sweet spot. Meanwhile, deepseek v3: open-weights reasoning at bargain pricing.
Side-by-side
Specs
| Dimension | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Released | 2025-12 | 2025-05 |
| Context window | ✓1M | 128K |
| Output max | ✓64K | 8K |
| Input /M | $3.00 | ✓$0.27 |
| Output /M | $15.00 | ✓$1.10 |
| Modalities | ✓text, image | text |
| Open weights | no | ✓yes |
Scorecard
Dimension-by-dimension
Claude Sonnet 4.6
DeepSeek V3
reasoning
9.0
9.0
coding
9.0
9.0
writing
9.0
7.0
speed
7.0
7.0
value
9.0
10.0
Verdict
Which wins, by use case
| Use case | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| coding | DeepSeek V3 | a coin flip on our weighted coding score |
| writing | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a clear edge on our weighted writing score |
| chat | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a coin flip on our weighted chat score |
| agents | DeepSeek V3 | a coin flip on our weighted agents score |
| summarization | DeepSeek V3 | a coin flip on our weighted summarization score |
| translation | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a coin flip on our weighted translation score |
| reasoning | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a coin flip on our weighted reasoning score |
| research | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | a coin flip on our weighted research score |
| vision and multimodal | DeepSeek V3 | a coin flip on our weighted vision score |
| Cheapest AI models for bulk workloads | DeepSeek V3 | a clear edge on our weighted cheap-bulk score |
Bottom line
Our take
Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you need: excellent value per token, strong code generation.
Pick DeepSeek V3 if you need: strong math & code, very cheap.
At a 500M-input / 150M-output monthly volume, Claude Sonnet 4.6 costs roughly $3750 vs DeepSeek V3 at $300. Use our calculator to plug in your own numbers.
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