Standard Compute
Model comparison 2026

DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash

DeepSeek R1 (0528)
DeepSeek · Balanced · Open weights
$0.99/1M · 164K ctx
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Google · Balanced · Proprietary
$1.65/1M · 1.0M 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
DeepSeek R1
Gemini 3.8 Flash
Maker
DeepSeek
Google
Blended price / 1M
$0.99
$1.65
Input / output
$0.50 in · $2.15 out / 1M tokens
$0.75 in · $3.75 out / 1M tokens
Context window
164K
1.0M
Open weights
Yes
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
7.5
9.1
Agentic Ability
7.0
8.9
Speed
6.8
9.2
Value for money
8.6
8.8
Reliability
8.6
8.9

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

Verdict: DeepSeek R1 or Gemini 3.8 Flash?

Updated 2026-10-13

Choose DeepSeek R1 (0528) if you want reasoning-heavy planning where cost matters. Choose Gemini 3.8 Flash if you want high-throughput agents and Gemini CLI users who want speed and big context.

In our editorial scoring, Gemini 3.8 Flash leads in 5 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability, speed, value for money and reliability), while DeepSeek R1 (0528) leads in 0. On price, DeepSeek R1 (0528) runs about $0.99 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; Gemini 3.8 Flash is about $1.65 and proprietary.

Where DeepSeek R1 falls short
  • Slow due to long reasoning
  • Weaker at fast tool loops
Full DeepSeek R1 breakdown →
Where Gemini 3.8 Flash falls short
  • Price doubles to $1.50/$7.50 on January 1, 2027
  • Weak on long terminal tasks (19.1% on Terminal-Bench 4.0)
Full Gemini 3.8 Flash breakdown →

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