DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime
Side-by-side comparison of specs, pricing, benchmark scores, and task rankings. Updated 2026-10-19.
| DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | deepseek | qwen |
| Quality Score | 100 | 100 |
| Input Price | $0.15/M | $4.00/M |
| Output Price | $0.60/M | $12.00/M |
| Context Window | 1,048,576 | 1,000,000 |
| Max Output | 393,216 | 131,072 |
| Tool Calling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Structured Output | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reasoning Mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vision | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio | - | - |
The verdict
For a sample job of 1 million input tokens and 250,000 output tokens, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 costs $0.30 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime costs $7.00, so DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 is about 23.3 times cheaper for the same work.
Both take in a similar amount of text: 1,048,576 and 1,000,000 tokens, about 1,573 and 1,500 pages.
Only Qwen3.8 Max Prime offers video input.
Across the 10 tasks where they differ, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 scores higher on 10 (SQL Generation, Code Completion, Code Documentation and others).
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 was released in October 2026 and Qwen3.8 Max Prime in September 2026.
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 if you need lower cost or the stronger all-round task scores; pick Qwen3.8 Max Prime if you need video input.
Costs use current list prices per million tokens; page counts assume about 0.75 words per token and 500 words per page.
Who wins by task?
| Task | DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 | Qwen: Qwen3.8 Max Prime |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Generation | 133 | 132 |
| Code Completion | 131 | 116 |
| Code Documentation | 131 | 128 |
| Regex Writing | 119 | 116 |
| CSV / Spreadsheet Cleanup | 133 | 132 |
| JSON Extraction | 131 | 120 |
| Bulk Data Labeling | 129 | 117 |
| Long-Document Summarization | 137 | 136 |
| Short-Form Summarization | 123 | 112 |
| Blog Post Writing | 121 | 120 |
Scores reflect capability match + benchmark data + pricing for each task. Methodology →