Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026

Claude Sonnet 4 vs DeepSeek Coder V2 benchmark

Name: Claude Sonnet 4 vs DeepSeek Coder V2 AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Claude Sonnet 4 (Anthropic) and DeepSeek Coder V2 (DeepSeek) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 17, 2026. On preference Elo, Claude Sonnet 4 is ahead by 90 points (1,455 vs 1,365; lmarena (Aug 17, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Claude Sonnet 4 resolves 62.8% versus 60.5% (swebench (Aug 17, 2026)). Claude Sonnet 4 streams faster (92 tok/s) while DeepSeek Coder V2 is the cheaper output token ($0.28/1M). Claude Sonnet 4 has the larger context window (1M tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4

First Sonnet 4 generation. Bridge between 3.5/3.7 and Sonnet 5.

Elo 1,455$15/1M out

DeepSeek

DeepSeek Coder V2

DeepSeek open-weight Mixture-of-Experts coding model supporting 338 programming languages and 128k context.

Elo 1,365$0.28/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 4 (8)vsDeepSeek Coder V2 (2)

Claude Sonnet 4: 8W (80%)Overall: Claude Sonnet 4DeepSeek Coder V2: 2W (20%)

← Claude Sonnet 4DeepSeek Coder V2 →

Claude Sonnet 4 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,455vs1,365

Coding Elo

1,468vs1,442

SWE-bench

62.8%vs60.5%

LiveBench

63.2%vs58.6%

GPQA Diamond

76.4%vs70.2%

Claude Sonnet 4: 5WDeepSeek Coder V2: 0W

Claude Sonnet 4 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

92 tok/svs75 tok/s

Time to first token

220 msvs290 ms

Claude Sonnet 4: 2WDeepSeek Coder V2: 0W

DeepSeek Coder V2 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$15/1Mvs$0.28/1M

Input price

$3/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Context window

1Mvs128k

Claude Sonnet 4: 1WDeepSeek Coder V2: 2W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageClaude Sonnet 4 5/6

Preference Elo

Claude Sonnet 4

90 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Claude Sonnet 4

17 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

DeepSeek Coder V2

$14.72/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+7%1,455

EloHigh is better

1,365

Code Elo

High is better

+2%1,468

Code EloHigh is better

1,442

LiveBench

High is better

+8%63.2%

LiveBenchHigh is better

58.6%

SWE-bench

High is better

+4%62.8%

SWE-benchHigh is better

60.5%

GPQA

High is better

+9%76.4%

GPQAHigh is better

70.2%

TTFT

Low is better

+32%220 ms

TTFTLow is better

290 ms

Speed

High is better

+23%92 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

75 tok/s

In $

Low is better

$3/1M

In $Low is better

$0.14/1M+2043%

Out $

Low is better

$15/1M

Out $Low is better

$0.28/1M+5257%

Context

High is better

+681%1M

ContextHigh is better

128k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 97% with DeepSeek Coder V2

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Claude Sonnet 4$330.00 / mo

In: $105.00Out: $225.00

DeepSeek Coder V2$9.10 / mo

In: $4.90Out: $4.20

Estimated Cost Delta

DeepSeek Coder V2 is estimated to save $320.90/month ($3,851/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Claude Sonnet 4:Pick Claude Sonnet 4 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
DeepSeek Coder V2:Pick DeepSeek Coder V2 when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Claude Sonnet 4:Pick Claude Sonnet 4 when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 4

Higher SWE-bench (62.8%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek Coder V2

Lower output list price ($0.28/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 4

Lower TTFT (220 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4

Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 4	Higher SWE-bench (62.8%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek Coder V2	Lower output list price ($0.28/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 4	Lower TTFT (220 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 4	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Sonnet 4	Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

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LIVE

Anthropic

Claude Sonnet 4

Elo 1,455

LiveBench63.2%

SWE-bench62.8%

Speed92 tok/s

Output cost$15/1M

DeepSeek

DeepSeek Coder V2

Elo 1,365

LiveBench58.6%

SWE-bench60.5%

Speed75 tok/s

Output cost$0.28/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?: Claude Sonnet 4 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,455). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?: Claude Sonnet 4 leads SWE-bench at 62.8% vs 60.5%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: DeepSeek Coder V2 output tokens are $0.28/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?: Claude Sonnet 4 has the lower time-to-first-token (220 ms vs 290 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Claude Sonnet 4 accepts 1M tokens versus 128k.
Can I self-host either model?: DeepSeek Coder V2 is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Sonnet 4 and DeepSeek Coder V2 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Claude Sonnet 4 matchups →|All DeepSeek Coder V2 matchups →

Claude Sonnet 4 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet (previous sonnet)Claude Sonnet 4 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 (next sonnet)DeepSeek Coder V2 vs DeepSeek V3 (next deepseek)DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Claude Sonnet 4 DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Claude Sonnet 4 Claude Sonnet 5 vs Claude Sonnet 4

Claude Sonnet 4 vs DeepSeek Coder V2 benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Claude Sonnet 4 (8)vsDeepSeek Coder V2 (2)

Claude Sonnet 4: 8W (80%)Overall: Claude Sonnet 4DeepSeek Coder V2: 2W (20%)

← Claude Sonnet 4DeepSeek Coder V2 →

Claude Sonnet 4 (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

1,455vs1,365

Coding Elo

1,468vs1,442

SWE-bench

62.8%vs60.5%

LiveBench

63.2%vs58.6%

GPQA Diamond

76.4%vs70.2%

Claude Sonnet 4: 5WDeepSeek Coder V2: 0W

Claude Sonnet 4 (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

92 tok/svs75 tok/s

Time to first token

220 msvs290 ms

Claude Sonnet 4: 2WDeepSeek Coder V2: 0W

DeepSeek Coder V2 (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$15/1Mvs$0.28/1M

Input price

$3/1Mvs$0.14/1M

Context window

1Mvs128k

Claude Sonnet 4: 1WDeepSeek Coder V2: 2W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsClaude Sonnet 4

Higher SWE-bench (62.8%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek Coder V2

Lower output list price ($0.28/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIClaude Sonnet 4

Lower TTFT (220 ms).

Long-document RAGClaude Sonnet 4

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionClaude Sonnet 4

Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Claude Sonnet 4	Higher SWE-bench (62.8%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek Coder V2	Lower output list price ($0.28/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Claude Sonnet 4	Lower TTFT (220 ms).
Long-document RAG	Claude Sonnet 4	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Claude Sonnet 4	Claude Sonnet 4 is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?

Claude Sonnet 4 has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,455). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?

Claude Sonnet 4 leads SWE-bench at 62.8% vs 60.5%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

DeepSeek Coder V2 output tokens are $0.28/1M versus $15/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Claude Sonnet 4 or DeepSeek Coder V2?

Claude Sonnet 4 has the lower time-to-first-token (220 ms vs 290 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Claude Sonnet 4 accepts 1M tokens versus 128k.

Can I self-host either model?

DeepSeek Coder V2 is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Claude Sonnet 4 and DeepSeek Coder V2 Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.