Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

Claude Opus 5.5 vs DeepSeek R1 (0528)

Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic · Frontier · Proprietary
$8.80/1M · 1M ctx
DeepSeek R1 (0528)
DeepSeek · Balanced · Open weights
$0.99/1M · 164K ctx

Community vote

Pick a winner in each dimension. You can change your vote any time.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for money
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results: fewer refusals, loops and format breaks

Specs and pricing side by side

Spec
Opus 5.5
DeepSeek R1
Maker
Anthropic
DeepSeek
Blended price / 1M
$8.80
$0.99
Input / output
$4.00 in · $20 out / 1M tokens
$0.50 in · $2.15 out / 1M tokens
Context window
1M
164K
Open weights
No
Yes
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
10.0
7.5
Agentic Ability
10.0
7.0
Speed
7.6
6.8
Value for money
7.4
8.6
Reliability
9.5
8.6

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: Opus 5.5 or DeepSeek R1?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose Claude Opus 5.5 if you want the hardest coding and agent work, as the default flagship instead of Fable. Choose DeepSeek R1 (0528) if you want reasoning-heavy planning where cost matters.

In our editorial scoring, Claude Opus 5.5 leads in 4 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability, speed and reliability), while DeepSeek R1 (0528) leads in 1. On price, Claude Opus 5.5 runs about $8.80 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; DeepSeek R1 (0528) is about $0.99 and open-weight.

Where Opus 5.5 falls short
  • Twice Sonnet 5.5's price per token for a small measured gain
  • Released September 2026, so its long-run track record is still short
Full Opus 5.5 breakdown →
Where DeepSeek R1 falls short
  • Slow due to long reasoning
  • Weaker at fast tool loops
Full DeepSeek R1 breakdown →

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