BenchLeader

Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424

Full profiles: Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic) and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (DeepSeek): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 11 sources

As of 22 Oct 2026, Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality (68.9 vs 59.7 on the BenchLeader Index), but DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) costs 18× less, so it is the better buy unless you need the extra quality. Claude Opus 5 leads in every category we measure both in.

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
Agents & tool useEither64 vs 64 category score; τ³-Banking (AA) 42.1% vs 30.1%Either
ReasoningClaude Opus 574 vs 62 category score; CritPt 29.1% vs 12.9%High
KnowledgeClaude Opus 572 vs 57 category score; AA-Omniscience 37.1 vs -10.7High
Long documentsClaude Opus 565 vs 62 category score; AA-LCR 79.3% vs 74.7%Medium
Chat quality (human preference)–Only Claude Opus 5 has an Arena rating (69 category score)Not comparable
Lowest costDeepSeek V4 Pro 0424$0.548 vs $10.00 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.030 vs $0.400–
Fastest first answerEither44.1 s (Claude Opus 5 (max)) vs 49.0 s (DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)) to the first answer token–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 68.9 vs 59.7.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max) is stronger in agents & tools, coding, composite, human preference, knowledge, long context, maths, multimodal, reasoning.
  • DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) is stronger in instruction following.
  • DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) is 18× cheaper ($0.548 vs $10.00 per 1M blended).
  • DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) streams 1.8× faster (92 vs 51 tokens per second).

At a glance

SpecClaude Opus 5DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424
DeveloperAnthropicDeepSeek
Released24 Jul 202624 Apr 2026
Context window (tokens)1,000,0001,000,000
Compared atClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)
Open weightsNoYes
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$5.00 / $25.00 / $0.500$0.440 / $0.870 / –

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)Leader
Reasoning74.262.2Claude Opus 5
Coding70.2–not comparable
Agents & tools64.363.8level
Maths70.6–not comparable
Knowledge71.756.7Claude Opus 5
Instruction following–74.5not comparable
Human preference68.5–not comparable
Multimodal68.0–not comparable
Long context64.762.3Claude Opus 5
Composite86.663.7Claude Opus 5

Where sources disagree

Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 17, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.

Overall indexClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)Leader
BenchLeader Index68.959.7Claude Opus 5
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.250.830.4Claude Opus 5

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page; suite cost is what Artificial Analysis paid to run its whole Intelligence Index.

MeasureClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens$10.00$0.548
Input / output per 1M$5.00 / $25.00$0.440 / $0.870
Cached input per 1M$0.500–
Price per task: chat reply$0.0095$0.0004
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.075$0.0058
Price per task: code edit$0.068$0.0039
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.400$0.030
Price per task: structured extraction$0.015$0.0011
Cost to run a full benchmark suite$5.86$0.122
Output speed51 tok/s92 tok/s
Time to first answer44.1 s49.0 s
Time to a complete answer53.9 s54.4 s

Per token is not per task: on Artificial Analysis' full suite Claude Opus 5 (max) cost $5.86 and DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) $0.122, because Claude Opus 5 (max) used about 2.6× as many tokens for the same work, which a per-token price hides.

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Claude Opus 5 (max) scores 68.9 and takes 44 s to its first answer token; Claude Opus 5 (high) scores 67.9 in 12 s, Claude Opus 5 (xhigh) scores 67.5 in 26 s. DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max) scores 59.7 and takes 49 s to its first answer token; DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (high) scores 57.9 in 25 s, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (no reasoning) scores 50.8 in 2 s. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

133 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader68.959.7
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader64.363.8
Coding scoreBenchLeader70.2–
Composite scoreBenchLeader86.663.7
Human preference scoreBenchLeader68.5–
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader71.756.7
Long context scoreBenchLeader64.762.3
Maths scoreBenchLeader70.6–
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader68.0–
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader74.262.2
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader–74.5
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$10.00$0.548
Output speedBenchLeader51 tok/s92 tok/s
Time to first answerBenchLeader44.1 s49.0 s
Context windowBenchLeader1,000,000 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub93.9%–
SimpleBenchSimpleBench80.6%†–
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)1516–
LiveBench 2.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.2%†–
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench91.2%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis93.2%88.8%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis54.9%37.5%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI93.4%†–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize97.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize90.4%–
ARC-AGI-3ARC Prize30.2%†–
CritPtArtificial Analysis29.1%12.9%
MysteryMechanismVals AI37.4%†–
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub43.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.0%–
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub63.3%–
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub97.6%–
ForecastBenchForecastBench66.5%–
BTF-3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub12.0%†–
Coding
SciCodeSciCode56.4%–
WeirdMLWeirdML91.8%–
FrontierCodeCognition53.4%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)1530–
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)1689–
LiveBench 2.0 CodingLiveBench90.8%†–
Show all 133 benchmarks
MetricPublisherClaude Opus 5 (max)DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 (max)
Coding
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench81.5%–
SciCode (AA)Artificial Analysis56.4%50.8%
LiveCodeBenchVals AI89.0%†–
IOIVals AI84.3%†–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI97.0%†–
Code MigrationVals AI57.5%†–
ProgramBenchVals AI3.0%†–
Vibe Code Bench 1-100Vals AI28.5%†–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI88.4%†–
SWE Atlas: Codebase QnAScale AI SEAL63.2%†–
SWE Atlas: Test WritingScale AI SEAL62.2%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.7%–
CursorBenchCursor46.6%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub2164.6†–
FrontierSWEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub52.0%–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis49.0%14.7%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis89.1%64.0%
Startrise FrontendStartrise82.3%†–
Agents & tools
Terminal-BenchTerminal-Bench51.8%–
OSWorld-Verified 2.0OSWorld31.4%–
APEX-AgentsMercor65.8%–
Arena AgentArena (LMArena)8.1–
LiveBench Long AgenticLiveBench62.1%†–
LiveBench BrowserLiveBench84.0%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench65.2%–
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis–46.2%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis–96.2%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI84.6%†–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL85.8%†–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL57.0%†–
τ³-bench Bankingτ²-bench48.7%–
GDPval-AA v2.1Artificial Analysis61.0%32.8%
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis42.1%30.1%
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis–38.3%
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis53.8%18.8%
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis–24.3%
CUA-benchVals AI9.0%–
CyberBenchVals AI65.4%†–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI58.6%†–
Legal Research BenchVals AI55.3%†–
SkillsBenchVals AI60.4%†–
SREBenchVals AI12.2%†–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI45.5%†–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI53.5%†–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI27.1%†–
Time Horizon Index: KSPVals AI18.8%†–
Arena SearchArena (LMArena)1214†–
BALROGBALROG63.4%–
PostTrainBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub35.0%†–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub79.6%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs11181.9†–
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis56.6%56.3%
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis21.6%13.4%
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis47.5%40.4%
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis1658–
Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis28.6%–
DeepSec-Bench (AA)Artificial Analysis25.9%–
FACTS SearchGoogle85.3%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub85.6%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub73.2%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub98.9%–
ProofBenchVals AI99.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench95.7%–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)1518–
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub59.9%–
LiveBench 2.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench74.6%†–
LiveBench ResearchLiveBench88.9%†–
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench74.5%–
AA-OmniscienceArtificial Analysis37.1-10.7
MMLU-ProVals AI91.6%†–
LegalBenchVals AI87.0%†–
CorpFinVals AI73.2%†–
TaxEvalVals AI75.1%†–
BioMysteryBenchVals AI79.3%†–
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI73.6%†–
MedCodeVals AI63.6%†–
MedScribeVals AI91.0%†–
Public Benefits BenchVals AI76.9%†–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL53.7%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.7%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub24.0%–
AA-Omniscience: accuracyArtificial Analysis60.9%43.0%
AA-Omniscience: non-hallucinationArtificial Analysis39.2%5.9%
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench88.7%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench63.8%–
IFBenchArtificial Analysis–76.5%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)1495–
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)1491–
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1385†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)1473–
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)1487–
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)1503–
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1320†–
LiveBench DesignLiveBench83.0%†–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis84.7%–
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI89.9%†–
MortgageTaxVals AI72.1%†–
SAGEVals AI49.4%†–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub30.4%†–
Long context
AA-LCRArtificial Analysis79.3%74.7%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1490†–
MLCRArtificial Analysis11.1%9.4%
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub163.9†–
LiveBench 2.0LiveBench82.1%†–
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench80.1%–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis50.830.4
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI73.9%†–
Safety & honesty
FORTRESSScale AI SEAL16.8%†–

Data as of 2026-10-22. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

What changed

  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (ForecastBench); 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): BenchLeader Index 68.3 → 68.9.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 4 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, AA-Omniscience: accuracy, AA-Omniscience: non-hallucination…).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 2 score revisions.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 2 new results (Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 (AA), DeepSec-Bench (AA)).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 new result (DrugDiscoveryBench).
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 1 score revision.
  • Claude Opus 5 (max): 2 score revisions.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for coding · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424: questions

Is Claude Opus 5 better than DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424?
Claude Opus 5 (max) leads on quality: 68.9 vs 59.7. The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; Claude Opus 5 (max) is ahead overall as of 2026-10-22, but check the category scores for your use.
Which is cheaper, Claude Opus 5 or DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424, and will that change?
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 is cheaper today: $0.548 against $10.00 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Claude Opus 5 better than DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 for agents and tool use?
They are level in agentic tasks (64 vs 64 on the category index). On τ³-Banking (AA), the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 42.1% for Claude Opus 5 against 30.1% for DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424.
Which is better for long documents?
Claude Opus 5 scores higher on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 62). Both accept 1,000,000 tokens of context.
Which has lower latency?
Claude Opus 5 (max) answers first: 44.1 s against 49.0 s to the first answer token, as Artificial Analysis measures it. Reasoning effort drives most of this: a higher setting thinks longer before it answers.
Which is faster, Claude Opus 5 or DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424?
DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 streams faster: 92 against 51 output tokens per second.
Do independent benchmarks agree on Claude Opus 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424?
Across the 17 benchmarks both have, Claude Opus 5 leads 17, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0424 leads 0. Every overall index that rates both puts Claude Opus 5 ahead.
When was Claude Opus 5 released?
Claude Opus 5 was released on 24 Jul 2026.