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DeepSeek-V3 vs Phi-4

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

Updated

DeepSeek-V3 specs · Phi-4 specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceDeepSeek-V3

    DeepSeek-V3 publishes pricing ($1.10 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not.

  • Context windowDeepSeek-V3

    DeepSeek-V3 accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksDeepSeek-V3

    DeepSeek-V3 leads in 2 of 2 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 90.0 vs 82.6.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance DeepSeek-V3 edges ahead, winning 3 of 5 categories against Phi-4's 0. DeepSeek-V3 publishes pricing ($1.10 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-4 does not. DeepSeek-V3 accepts 128K tokens vs 16K, 8.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

DeepSeek-V3 leads in 2 of 2 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on HumanEval (Python coding), where it scores 90.0 vs 82.6. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. DeepSeek-V3 is usually picked for open source llm and commercial use llm workloads, while Phi-4 sees more deployments in on device 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-V3Phi-4
ProviderDeepSeekMicrosoft
ReleasedDec 2024Dec 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window128K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$0.27 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Output · 1M$1.10 / 1M tokensPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff2024-07,
Open weightsYes (MIT)Yes (MIT)
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$2.46 vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$24.60 vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$47.10 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-V3$0.082
  • Phi-4Pricing 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-V3Phi-4
  • MMLU88.584.8
  • HumanEval90.082.6
Pick DeepSeek-V3 if

DeepSeek-V3 fits when…

  • Frontier-level quality at open-weight prices
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Cheap to serve via MoE architecture
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
Pick Phi-4 if

Phi-4 fits when…

  • Exceptional quality at 14B parameters
  • MIT license, clean commercial use
  • Strong on math
Don't want either?

Consider DeepSeek-R1

First open-weight reasoning model to match o1, the release that proved RL-from-scratch reasoning training was reproducible.

See DeepSeek-R1 specsDeepSeek-V3 vs DeepSeek-R1Phi-4 vs DeepSeek-R1

Frequently asked

  • Is DeepSeek-V3 or Phi-4 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?
    DeepSeek-V3 accepts 128K tokens vs 16K for Phi-4.
  • Is DeepSeek-V3 or Phi-4 better for coding?
    Both DeepSeek-V3 and Phi-4 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-V3 is licensed under MIT; Phi-4 under MIT.
  • When were DeepSeek-V3 and Phi-4 released?
    DeepSeek-V3 was released by DeepSeek on 2024-12-26. Phi-4 was released by Microsoft on 2024-12-12.
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