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  3. DeepSeek R1 vs Qwen 2.5 Plus

Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026

DeepSeek R1 vs Qwen 2.5 Plus benchmark

In this head-to-head showdown, Qwen 2.5 Plus delivers higher overall intelligence and human-preferred responses (Elo 1,445 vs 1,358), while DeepSeek R1 leads in SWE-bench software engineering benchmarks (65.2%), while Qwen 2.5 Plus is more budget-friendly at $1/1M per 1M output tokens. Review the complete breakdown below to determine which model best fits your performance and budget requirements.

Executive Comparison Verdict

Bottom Line: Qwen 2.5 Plus holds the advantage over DeepSeek R1 in overall benchmark performance and human evaluation rankings. Choose Qwen 2.5 Plus for demanding workloads, or review the breakdown below to compare coding and pricing metrics.
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DeepSeek
DeepSeek R1

Open-weights reasoning model trained with large-scale RL.

Elo 1,358$2.5/1M out
Alibaba
Qwen 2.5 Plus

Alibaba balanced flagship API model with high-throughput general reasoning.

Elo 1,445$1/1M out

DeepSeek R1 Thinking Depth & Cost Scaler

Simulate accuracy gains vs added response time & token cost

Mode: Medium (Full RL CoT)

Reasoning models “think before answering” by generating internal reasoning tokens. Higher effort improves math, coding, and logic accuracy, but increases response delay and token costs.

Thinking Delay
420 ms
Standard speed
Reasoning Depth
~2,800
Internal tokens
Cost / 1k Calls
$8.10
7.4× standard bill
Accuracy Boost
+6.5% accuracy
STEM & SWE-bench
Top Rival Showdowns for DeepSeek R1
All Matchups
Compare vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5vs GPT-5vs Gemini 3 Provs Grok 4.6vs Qwen 3 Max
Preference Leader

Qwen 2.5 Plus

Δ 87 Arena Elo pts

Throughput Leader

Qwen 2.5 Plus

110 tok/s

Value per Dollar Leader

Qwen 2.5 Plus

$1 / 1M output

Capability Percentiles

Relative percentile scores computed across all active models in the benchmark catalog.

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 AdvantageQwen 2.5 Plus 4/6
Head-to-Head Comparison

Overall Matchup Breakdown

Category wins across reasoning intelligence, generation speed, and token cost.

DeepSeek R1 (2)vsQwen 2.5 Plus (8)
DeepSeek R1: 2W (20%)Overall: Qwen 2.5 PlusQwen 2.5 Plus: 8W (80%)
← DeepSeek R1Qwen 2.5 Plus →
Qwen 2.5 Plus (3/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo
1,358vs1,445
Coding Elo
—vs1,460
SWE-bench
65.2%vs59.2%
LiveBench
59%vs63.5%
GPQA Diamond
79.8%vs75.8%
DeepSeek R1: 2WQwen 2.5 Plus: 3W
Qwen 2.5 Plus (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed
62 tok/svs110 tok/s
Time to first token
420 msvs180 ms
DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 2.5 Plus: 2W
Qwen 2.5 Plus (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price
$2.5/1Mvs$1/1M
Input price
$0.7/1Mvs$0.25/1M
Context window
64kvs128k
DeepSeek R1: 0WQwen 2.5 Plus: 3W

Side-by-Side Benchmark Matrix

Preference EloQwen 2.5 Plus (+87)
DeepSeek R11,358
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus1,445
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Coding Elo
DeepSeek R1—
Qwen 2.5 Plus1,460
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
LiveBenchQwen 2.5 Plus (+4.5%)
DeepSeek R159%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus63.5%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
SWE-benchDeepSeek R1 (+6%)
DeepSeek R165.2%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus59.2%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
GPQA DiamondDeepSeek R1 (+4%)
DeepSeek R179.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus75.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Time to first tokenQwen 2.5 Plus (+240 ms)
DeepSeek R1420 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus180 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Output speedQwen 2.5 Plus (+48 tok/s)
DeepSeek R162 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus110 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Input priceQwen 2.5 Plus (+$0.45/1M)
DeepSeek R1$0.7/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus$0.25/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Output priceQwen 2.5 Plus (+$1.5/1M)
DeepSeek R1$2.5/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus$1/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Context windowQwen 2.5 Plus (+64k)
DeepSeek R164k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus128k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
BenchmarkDeepSeek R1Qwen 2.5 PlusAdvantage Delta
Preference Elo
1,358
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
1,445
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+87)
Coding Elo—
1,460
lmarena · Aug 17, 2026
—
LiveBench
59%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
63.5%
livebench · Aug 17, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+4.5%)
SWE-bench
65.2%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
59.2%
swebench · Aug 17, 2026
DeepSeek R1 (+6%)
GPQA Diamond
79.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
75.8%
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
DeepSeek R1 (+4%)
Time to first token
420 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
180 ms
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+240 ms)
Output speed
62 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
110 tok/s
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+48 tok/s)
Input price
$0.7/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
$0.25/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+$0.45/1M)
Output price
$2.5/1M
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
$1/1M
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+$1.5/1M)
Context window
64k
openrouter · Aug 17, 2026
128k
seed-bootstrap · Aug 1, 2026
Qwen 2.5 Plus (+64k)
Interactive Simulator (USD)

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs in USD (US Dollar).

Save up to 62% with Qwen 2.5 Plus
Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo
Quick Presets:
Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out
RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)
DeepSeek R1$62.00 / mo
In: $24.5Out: $37.5
Qwen 2.5 Plus$23.75 / mo
In: $8.75Out: $15
Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen 2.5 Plus is estimated to save $38.25/month ($459/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

  • 1
    DeepSeek R1:Pick DeepSeek R1 when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
  • 2
    Qwen 2.5 Plus:Pick Qwen 2.5 Plus when you are optimizing output cost.
  • 3
    Qwen 2.5 Plus:Pick Qwen 2.5 Plus when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsDeepSeek R1

Higher SWE-bench (65.2%).

High-volume chatQwen 2.5 Plus

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

Voice / low-latency UIQwen 2.5 Plus

Lower TTFT (180 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen 2.5 Plus

Larger window (128k).

Screenshots / visionQwen 2.5 Plus

Qwen 2.5 Plus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target WorkloadRecommended PickEvaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agentsDeepSeek R1Higher SWE-bench (65.2%).
High-volume chatQwen 2.5 PlusLower output list price ($1/1M).
Voice / low-latency UIQwen 2.5 PlusLower TTFT (180 ms).
Long-document RAGQwen 2.5 PlusLarger window (128k).
Screenshots / visionQwen 2.5 PlusQwen 2.5 Plus is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news
launchJan 20, 2025

DeepSeek R1 stays as the open-weights RL baseline

Jan 2025 reasoning model. Still searched. V4 Pro is the newer DeepSeek buy.

Community Sentiment

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CompareLLM Matrix

Verified head-to-head card

LIVE
VS
DeepSeek

DeepSeek R1

Elo 1,358
LiveBench59%
SWE-bench65.2%
Speed62 tok/s
Output cost$2.5/1M
Alibaba

Qwen 2.5 Plus

Elo 1,445
LiveBench63.5%
SWE-bench59.2%
Speed110 tok/s
Output cost$1/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 2.5 Plus?
Qwen 2.5 Plus has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,445). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 2.5 Plus?
DeepSeek R1 leads SWE-bench at 65.2% vs 59.2%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?
Qwen 2.5 Plus output tokens are $1/1M versus $2.5/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, DeepSeek R1 or Qwen 2.5 Plus?
Qwen 2.5 Plus has the lower time-to-first-token (180 ms vs 420 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?
Qwen 2.5 Plus accepts 128k tokens versus 64k.
Can I self-host either model?
DeepSeek R1 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. DeepSeek R1 and Qwen 2.5 Plus Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Related news

  • launch · Jan 20, 2025

    DeepSeek R1 stays as the open-weights RL baseline

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All DeepSeek R1 matchups →|All Qwen 2.5 Plus matchups →
DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V3 (previous deepseek)DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro (next deepseek)Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct (previous qwen)Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (next qwen)DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Qwen 2.5 PlusQwen QwQ 32B vs Qwen 2.5 Plus