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DeepSeek-R1 vs Llama 4 70B

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

DeepSeek-R1 specs · Llama 4 70B specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceDeepSeek-R1

    DeepSeek-R1 publishes pricing ($2.19 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 70B does not.

  • Context windowTie

    Both ship a 128K-token context window.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesLlama 4 70B

    Llama 4 70B supports 2 modalities (text, vision) vs 1 for DeepSeek-R1.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

It's a genuine coin-flip between DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 4 70B: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. DeepSeek-R1 publishes pricing ($2.19 / 1M output tokens) while Llama 4 70B does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.

No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. They differ in modality coverage, DeepSeek-R1 handles text while Llama 4 70B handles text, vision, which can be the deciding factor before you even look at benchmarks. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Llama 4 70B is the newer of the two, released 3 months after DeepSeek-R1, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. DeepSeek-R1 is usually picked for reasoning and math workloads, while Llama 4 70B sees more deployments in open source llm and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

SpecDeepSeek-R1Llama 4 70B
ProviderDeepSeekMeta
ReleasedJan 2025Apr 2025
Modalitiestexttext, vision
Context window128K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.55 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$2.19 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2024-07,
Open weightsYes (MIT)Yes (Llama 4 Community License)
API availableYesYes

Pricing at scale

What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$4.94 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$49.35 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$95.64 vs ,

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • DeepSeek-R1$0.165
  • Llama 4 70BPricing unavailable

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

DeepSeek-R1Llama 4 70B
  • GPQA71.5
Pick DeepSeek-R1 if

DeepSeek-R1 fits when…

  • Open-weight reasoning model on par with o1
  • MIT license
  • Cheap reasoning per token
Pick Llama 4 70B if

Llama 4 70B fits when…

  • Self-hostable on commodity hardware
  • Strong all-rounder
  • Mature tooling (vLLM, SGLang)
  • Multimodal needs covering vision.
Don't want either?

Consider DeepSeek-V3

DeepSeek's flagship 671B-parameter MoE, frontier-level quality at a tiny fraction of frontier prices.

See DeepSeek-V3 specsDeepSeek-R1 vs DeepSeek-V3Llama 4 70B vs DeepSeek-V3

Frequently asked

  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or Llama 4 70B cheaper?
    Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    Both DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 4 70B ship a 128K-token context window.
  • Is DeepSeek-R1 or Llama 4 70B better for coding?
    Both DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 4 70B are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.
  • Are either of these models open source?
    Both ship with open weights. DeepSeek-R1 is licensed under MIT; Llama 4 70B under Llama 4 Community License.
  • When were DeepSeek-R1 and Llama 4 70B released?
    DeepSeek-R1 was released by DeepSeek on 2025-01-20. Llama 4 70B was released by Meta on 2025-04-05.
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