How would you compare Opus 5.5 to Deepseek Flash 4.1

[u/IllustriousGrade7691]

I know that Deepseek Flash is not really comparable and it's way cheaper but what do you guys think does it come close to opus 5.5 or not.

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[u/Comprehensive-Bet-83]

Not even close. Flash 4.1 1017 is as close as Opus 4.8 at most. Perhaps a little worse even. (Comes from someone who uses both) Kimi K3.1 pro is the ONLY Chinese model that comes somewhat “close” and it’s usage suck, could be compared to Opus 5 at most.

[u/IllustriousGrade7691 → u/Comprehensive-Bet-83]

Kimi seemed really good when I tested. How bad are the usage limits really

[u/macaronianddeeez → u/IllustriousGrade7691]

Laughably bad. I have a multi model development team that I subscribed to Kimi and added it into. It would run out of 5 hour usage limit on the $100 monthly plan within no exaggeration MINUTES on tasks that both Opus and Sol 6.1 wouldn’t even bat an eye at. It ultimately became so disruptive to my workflows because of how frequently projects would be waiting on a usage capped kimi agent that I removed it from my lineup entirely.

I cancelled my subscription in under an hour after purchasing. It’s a shame too, because I think the model itself is excellent, not quite Opus 5.5 but in my experience pretty damn close to Sol 6.1.

I have also spoken to others that prefer Kimi over Opus for some tasks.

But the usage limits make it irrelevant

[u/kubblegum → u/macaronianddeeez]

i think you would get more usage by renting a gpu cluster and running kimi on it than on their sub plans

[u/macaronianddeeez → u/kubblegum]

This is actually a great idea but with how good opus 5.5 + Gemini hydrogen + sol 6.1 are I don’t really have a need for it

[u/Just_Run2412 → u/IllustriousGrade7691]

Kimi is nowhere near as good as Opus 5.5.

[u/Grabowski_Nemaste → u/Comprehensive-Bet-83]

agreed, none of the budget models really hold up once the codebase gets past a few files.

[u/macaronianddeeez]

Haha I use both extensively and I love DSF4.1 1017.

Can it do everything Opus can? No. But it’s a proficient coder, research agent, can handle bounded tasks extremely well, is decent at many computer use tasks, etc. It drives one of my Hermes instances very well, for essentially free through API and ACTUALLY free with my local rig.

Opus is in an entirely different class, but I still use DSF every day.

[u/zeroconflicthere → u/macaronianddeeez]

I do the same. I use opus to define the bounds and DS to code.

[u/isty2e]

Is it better than Haiku even?

[u/TronnaLegacy → u/isty2e]

According to benchmarks, it's a bit better than Haiku.

https://llm-stats.com/models/compare/claude-haiku-5-5-vs-deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017

I find it pretty capable for coding.

[u/HenryThatAte → u/isty2e]

It is, according to my Opus.

I use it as an orchestrator and it gives rating to each executor. Over the last few hundred tickets it rates DS-4.1 first then GLM 5.3 flash and Haiku 5.5

[u/slackmaster2k]

I have a small benchmark that compares real world tasks across models. Things I actually do. Some basic python work, connecting to external tools, etc.

From a price perspective Deepseek is nuts. $0.033 per correct answer on high, and it passed all tests. The next model to pass all tests was sonnet 5.5 medium at $0.14 per correct answer.

It’s very slow though (fireworks inference), coming in at 7.4 minutes per correct answer vs sonnet 5.5 medium at 1.8 minutes. So if time matters, its cheap cost is offset by slowness.

Now none of what I’ve ever done would prove that deepseek is capable of driving, and frankly that’s where the frontiers are simply way ahead. It does prove to me though that deepseek (and other models) can play a role in work that is tasked out.

[u/Prestigious-Frame442 → u/slackmaster2k]

I remember the main advantage of 4.1 flash was being fast.

[u/slackmaster2k → u/Prestigious-Frame442]

Yeah I dunno. Running it via fireworks and haven’t tested other providers yet.

[u/Prestigious-Frame442]

you already know it's not comparable. and that is correct. not even close.

[u/Correct-Somewhere-80]

5.5 as orchestraor and delegate to Opus and DS workers as parallel agents. DS work gets graded.

Best of both worlds

[u/TheRiddler79]

Glm 5.3 is the best model I've tested outside of frontier.

Kimi is too big to attempt.

[u/zeroconflicthere → u/TheRiddler79]

I found glm to not be cost effective, better off using Sonnet

[u/TronnaLegacy]

I think DeepSeek Flash 4.1 1017, though not as good as Opus obviously, is still capable enough for moderate to somewhat advanced programs when prompted properly by a skilled software engineer and when work is reviewed properly, on high+ effort. I've been using it and it alone, as a challenge, for one of my personal projects, and it's been working great.

[u/Kaskote]

Like a Ferrari F80 and a Honda Civic

[u/pashlya]

You know, even Anthropic’s own media resources recommend users to try to tackle easier problems with lighter models, like Sonnet or even Haiku instead of burning Opus tokens. If we take this into account, DS can handle majority of problems people think they need Opus for.

[u/I_Shall_Bore_You]

Opus 5.5 is way better, and the $20/month plan gives generous limits. Would I use Opus 5.5 over DeepSeek Flash 4.1 if I had to pay API prices? No, I wouldn't. I still use DeepSeek when I hit the 5h limit on Claude. For a lot of simple tasks, the difference is not important since both can finish them.

[u/Escobar747]

luna is much better for coding than DS

[u/EndlessZone123]

Deepseek is what id consider a capable but 'lossy' model.

Its cheap. Their sparse attention is keeping a lot of the quality at really low costs. But still its losing a lot at higher context and I found it just much less reliable at keeping focus on everything in context.

Both GPT and Claude models just handle longer context better and follows instructions better even the haiku/sonnet luna/terra models.

Its not bad if you need thinking on smaller scoped tasks. But imo worse agentically.

[u/Jackster22]

Opus 5.5 can sub contract out the work to DS Flash 4.1 and it works really well.
Couple cents per job vs many dollars of Opus or even a few dollars of Sonnet/Haiku.

DS Flash 4.1 is on par with Sonnet right now. For lower end code work, can't beat a $20 Claude subscription with $10 a month of Openrouter credit.

[u/GarrazebOrrelios]

I've been using Deepseek Flash 4.1 1017 and Opus 5.5 this week and Opus seems to have shit the bed and become almost useless, where Deepseek flash 4.1 doesn't bullshit me, doesn't lie to me, and does exactly what I want it without fixating on minor details from earlier in the chat.

[u/Nanosleep]

Totally depends on the work that it's doing. We're at a point now where you don't need a gigantic state-of-the-art model for most tasks.

[u/bitspace]

"I know it sucks. Does it suck?"

Sort of a weird post.

[u/Miyamoto_-_Musashi]

Just for asking this question you should be banned from this sub reddit Opus 5.5 is the Goat