Model comparison 2026

DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5.4

DeepSeek R1 (0528)
DeepSeek · Balanced · Open weights
$0.99/1M · 164K ctx
GPT-5.4
OpenAI · Balanced · Proprietary
$6.25/1M · 1.1M 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
GPT-5.4
Maker
DeepSeek
OpenAI
Blended price / 1M
$0.99
$6.25
Input / output
$0.50 in · $2.15 out / 1M tokens
$2.50 in · $15 out / 1M tokens
Context window
164K
1.1M
Open weights
Yes
No
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
Yes
Output Quality
4.0
7.7
Agentic Ability
4.4
6.2
Speed
5.1
7.6
Value for Money
4.7
4.6
Reliability
8.4
8.6

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

Verdict: DeepSeek R1 or GPT-5.4?

Updated 2026-10-14

Choose DeepSeek R1 (0528) if you want research and comparisons that need the original R1 reasoning model. Choose GPT-5.4 if you want existing GPT-5.4 setups that have not moved to the GPT-6 family.

In our editorial scoring, GPT-5.4 leads in 4 of five dimensions (output quality, agentic ability, speed and reliability), while DeepSeek R1 (0528) leads in 1. On price, DeepSeek R1 (0528) runs about $0.99 per 1M tokens (blended) and is open-weight; GPT-5.4 is about $6.25 and proprietary.

Where DeepSeek R1 falls short
  • Slow (about 28 output tokens/s, per Artificial Analysis)
  • 164K context, smaller than 27.9% of the coding-agent requests we measured
Full DeepSeek R1 breakdown →
Where GPT-5.4 falls short
  • Superseded by the GPT-6 family; GPT-6.1 Sol scores higher for less
  • Prompts over 272K tokens bill at higher rates
Full GPT-5.4 breakdown →

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