Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Name: DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Qwen 3 Max AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares DeepSeek V4 Pro (DeepSeek) and Qwen 3 Max (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, DeepSeek V4 Pro is ahead by 18 points (1,536 vs 1,518; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, DeepSeek V4 Pro resolves 71.6% versus 67.8% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Qwen 3 Max streams faster (80 tok/s) while DeepSeek V4 Pro is the cheaper output token ($0.87/1M). DeepSeek V4 Pro 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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DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Open-weight-adjacent DeepSeek flagship. High reasoning density per dollar.

Elo 1,536$0.87/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Alibaba flagship. Strong math and multilingual code.

Elo 1,518$3.9/1M 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.

DeepSeek V4 Pro (8)vsQwen 3 Max (2)

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 8W (80%)Overall: DeepSeek V4 ProQwen 3 Max: 2W (20%)

← DeepSeek V4 ProQwen 3 Max →

DeepSeek V4 Pro (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,536vs1,518

Coding Elo

1,544vs1,526

SWE-bench

71.6%vs67.8%

LiveBench

70.1%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

84%vs83.1%

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 5WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Qwen 3 Max (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

70 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

410 msvs280 ms

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 0WQwen 3 Max: 2W

DeepSeek V4 Pro (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$0.87/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.44/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

1Mvs262k

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 3WQwen 3 Max: 0W

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 AdvantageDeepSeek V4 Pro 5/6

Preference Elo

DeepSeek V4 Pro

18 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Qwen 3 Max

10 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

DeepSeek V4 Pro

$3.03/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

+1%1,536

EloHigh is better

1,518

Code Elo

High is better

+1%1,544

Code EloHigh is better

1,526

LiveBench

High is better

+1%70.1%

LiveBenchHigh is better

69.4%

SWE-bench

High is better

+6%71.6%

SWE-benchHigh is better

67.8%

GPQA

High is better

+1%84%

GPQAHigh is better

83.1%

TTFT

Low is better

410 ms

TTFTLow is better

280 ms+46%

Speed

High is better

70 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

80 tok/s+14%

In $

Low is better

+79%$0.44/1M

In $Low is better

$0.78/1M

Out $

Low is better

+348%$0.87/1M

Out $Low is better

$3.9/1M

Context

High is better

+300%1M

ContextHigh is better

262k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 67% with DeepSeek V4 Pro

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

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

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

DeepSeek V4 Pro$28.28 / mo

In: $15.22Out: $13.05

Qwen 3 Max$85.80 / mo

In: $27.30Out: $58.50

Estimated Cost Delta

DeepSeek V4 Pro is estimated to save $57.53/month ($690/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
DeepSeek V4 Pro:Pick DeepSeek V4 Pro when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Qwen 3 Max:Pick Qwen 3 Max when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.
3
DeepSeek V4 Pro:Pick DeepSeek V4 Pro for million-token RAG or long-document jobs.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsDeepSeek V4 Pro

Higher SWE-bench (71.6%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek V4 Pro

Lower output list price ($0.87/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen 3 Max

Lower TTFT (280 ms).

Long-document RAGDeepSeek V4 Pro

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Higher SWE-bench (71.6%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Lower output list price ($0.87/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen 3 Max	Lower TTFT (280 ms).
Long-document RAG	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

compareJun 13, 2026

DeepSeek vs Claude: the cheap-versus-frontier question, remapped

Top DeepSeek vs top Anthropic Elo. Usually V4 Pro vs Opus 5. License and invoice decide as much as Elo.

launchJun 12, 2026

DeepSeek V4 Pro: high reasoning density per dollar

2026-06 open-weight-adjacent flagship. The usual cheap-vs-Claude question starts here.

launchApr 18, 2026

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Closed flagship. Strong math. Compare to Sol and Opus on GPQA and SWE-bench, not on brand heat.

launchSep 20, 2025

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Sep 2025 open-weight mixture-of-experts. Self-host path. Don’t confuse it with Qwen 3 Max.

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LIVE

DeepSeek

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Elo 1,536

LiveBench70.1%

SWE-bench71.6%

Speed70 tok/s

Output cost$0.87/1M

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Elo 1,518

LiveBench69.4%

SWE-bench67.8%

Speed80 tok/s

Output cost$3.9/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?: DeepSeek V4 Pro has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,536). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?: DeepSeek V4 Pro leads SWE-bench at 71.6% vs 67.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: DeepSeek V4 Pro output tokens are $0.87/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max has the lower time-to-first-token (280 ms vs 410 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: DeepSeek V4 Pro accepts 1M tokens versus 262k.
Can I self-host either model?: DeepSeek V4 Pro 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 V4 Pro and Qwen 3 Max Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All DeepSeek V4 Pro matchups →|All Qwen 3 Max matchups →

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs DeepSeek R1 (previous deepseek)DeepSeek V4 Pro vs DeepSeek V4 Flash (next deepseek)Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen QwQ 32B (previous qwen)Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen3.8 27B (next qwen)DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Qwen 3 Max GPT-4.5 Orion vs DeepSeek V4 Pro

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

DeepSeek V4 Pro (8)vsQwen 3 Max (2)

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 8W (80%)Overall: DeepSeek V4 ProQwen 3 Max: 2W (20%)

← DeepSeek V4 ProQwen 3 Max →

DeepSeek V4 Pro (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,536vs1,518

Coding Elo

1,544vs1,526

SWE-bench

71.6%vs67.8%

LiveBench

70.1%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

84%vs83.1%

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 5WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Qwen 3 Max (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

70 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

410 msvs280 ms

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 0WQwen 3 Max: 2W

DeepSeek V4 Pro (3/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$0.87/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.44/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

1Mvs262k

DeepSeek V4 Pro: 3WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsDeepSeek V4 Pro

Higher SWE-bench (71.6%).

High-volume chatDeepSeek V4 Pro

Lower output list price ($0.87/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen 3 Max

Lower TTFT (280 ms).

Long-document RAGDeepSeek V4 Pro

Larger window (1M).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Higher SWE-bench (71.6%).
High-volume chat	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Lower output list price ($0.87/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen 3 Max	Lower TTFT (280 ms).
Long-document RAG	DeepSeek V4 Pro	Larger window (1M).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?

DeepSeek V4 Pro has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,536). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?

DeepSeek V4 Pro leads SWE-bench at 71.6% vs 67.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

DeepSeek V4 Pro output tokens are $0.87/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max has the lower time-to-first-token (280 ms vs 410 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

DeepSeek V4 Pro accepts 1M tokens versus 262k.

Can I self-host either model?

DeepSeek V4 Pro 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 V4 Pro and Qwen 3 Max Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Qwen 3 Max

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

DeepSeek vs Claude: the cheap-versus-frontier question, remapped

DeepSeek V4 Pro: high reasoning density per dollar

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

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CompareLLM Matrix

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Qwen 3 Max

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Qwen 3 Max

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

DeepSeek vs Claude: the cheap-versus-frontier question, remapped

DeepSeek V4 Pro: high reasoning density per dollar

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

DeepSeek V4 Pro

Qwen 3 Max

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons