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Model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3-235B-A22B

DeepSeek against Qwen, compared on context, price, and verified benchmark results.

Catalog record checked September 26, 2026Individual provider fields may changeEvidence confidence: High — see receipts below

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Balanced · Open weights

vs

Qwen

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Balanced · Open weights

AI model capability comparison
SpecificationDeepSeek V4.1 FlashQwen3-235B-A22B
ProviderDeepSeekQwen
TierBalancedBalanced
Context windowWinner: 1M128K
Max outputWinner: 384K33K
Input / 1M tokensWinner: $0.30$0.70
Output / 1M tokensWinner: $1.20$2.80
WeightsOpenOpen
Parameters552B MoE (causal encoder-decoder; 8B active for input, 16B for output)235B total / 22B active (MoE)
Reasoning levelslow, high, maxlow, high, max
Modalitiestext, imagetext
LicenseMITApache 2.0
API model iddeepseek-flashqwen3-235b-a22b
ReleasedSeptember 10, 2026April 29, 2025
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index [max] (2026-09-26)39.5Not verifiedUnverified
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (2026-09-26)Not verifiedUnverified9.5
DeepSWE 1.1 [max] (2026-09-10)74.2Not verifiedUnverified
Terminal-Bench 2.1 [max] (2026-09-10)90.6Not verifiedUnverified
GPQA Diamond [max] (2026-09-10)90.9Not verifiedUnverified

Prices are USD per million tokens at standard rates, excluding batch and caching discounts. Bold indicates the better figure where one is objectively better. Values we could not confirm from the provider are shown as “Not verified” rather than estimated.

Benchmark receipts

Where each score comes from, and how far it can be compared across models.

  • 2026-09-26
    Artificial Analysis (Reasoning, AA-estimated)

    Composite index blending reasoning, knowledge, and coding evals into one 0–100 score.

    Comparable with caveatOnly same-version scores are comparable. v4.3.2 was rebaselined (the top score fell from 66 on v4.1.1 to ~58), so v4.1.1 figures must not be compared with v4.3.2 figures — check measuredAt.

  • 2026-09-10
    DeepSeek V4.1-Flash release notes (vendor)

    Agentic software engineering: pass@1 on real repo tasks with reported cost per completed task.

    Directly comparable

Pricing tiers

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here.

Qwen3-235B-A22B: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is DeepSeek's new default — an open-weight (MIT) multimodal MoE that DeepSeek says beats V4-Pro on performance, cost and speed.

Best for

  • Open-weight price-performance
  • High-volume hosted agents
  • Self-hosting with MIT weights

Watch out

Vendor benchmark claims are far ahead of its independent Artificial Analysis score (39.5 on v4.3.2); peak/off-peak billing means the hour you run matters.

BalancedOpen weightsRecord checked September 26, 2026

Qwen3-235B-A22B

Qwen3-235B-A22B is Alibaba's widely deployed open-weight MoE — 235B/22B, strong price-performance.

Best for

  • Open-weight deployments
  • Self-hosting
  • Multilingual

Watch out

Needs multi-GPU for the 235B total; hosted rates vary.

When the cheaper one wins

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper on output at $1.20 per million tokens against $2.80 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — about 2.3×. Use the cheaper tier for classification, extraction, summarisation, and any task where the expensive model’s extra score does not change the accepted output. The expensive one only pays if your hardest task actually fails on the cheap tier. These are standard-tier API rates, excluding batch and cache discounts.

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Evidence confidence: High

How strong and complete the evidence behind this comparison is — not a prediction of which model is better.

  • Pricing verified on both sides — Input and output rates are verified for both models.
  • 5/5 core specs verified on both sides — All core specifications verified for both models.
  • 1 shared named benchmark with differing scores — Measured on: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
  • Verified within the last 90 days — Newest catalog check was 2 days ago.
  • Both models carry source citations — Each side has at least two catalog sources on record.

Source receipts

Each catalog figure was checked against the provider or an independent second source on the date shown.

Related comparisons

Diving deeper on one model? DeepSeek V4.1 Flash · Qwen3-235B-A22B

Common questions

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Qwen3-235B-A22B

Answered from the verified figures on this page rather than general guidance.

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3-235B-A22B cheaper for input?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $0.30 per million input tokens, against $0.70 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — roughly 2.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3-235B-A22B cheaper for output?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is cheaper at $1.20 per million output tokens, against $2.80 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — roughly 2.3× the price. Output tokens usually dominate a real bill, so weigh the output rate more heavily than the input rate. These are base rates; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has tiered pricing: Official peak rates $0.30/$1.20 per MTok; off-peak $0.15/$0.60 (50% of peak). Cache hit $0.006 peak / $0.003 off-peak. Peak hours are weekdays 01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC. Open weights (MIT). The legacy deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp ids temporarily route here. Qwen3-235B-A22B has tiered pricing: Model Studio International $0.70 input / $2.80 output per MTok (non-thinking); thinking-mode output $8.40. Open weights (Apache 2.0) for self-hosting; 32,768-token recommended output.
Which has the larger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash accepts 1M tokens against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B. This only matters if you routinely send very long documents or large codebases.
Do DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Qwen3-235B-A22B support the same reasoning levels?
Yes — both accept the same effort settings: "low", "high", "max". Higher effort costs more and takes longer, so start low and raise it only where output quality actually improves.
Should I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
Both sit in the balanced tier, so the choice usually comes down to price and context rather than capability. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash suits open-weight price-performance; Qwen3-235B-A22B suits open-weight deployments.

Next step

Choosing between them

The verified figures that separate this pair, computed from the catalog rather than restated boilerplate.

  • Input price: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 per 1M tokens versus $0.70 for Qwen3-235B-A22B — a 2.3x difference at the headline tier.
  • Context: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash takes 1M against 128K for Qwen3-235B-A22B — only decisive if your prompts approach the smaller window.
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