DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs Qwen3-235B-A22B
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
DeepSeek R1 (0528)
67.8DeepSeek · May 2025
The open reasoning model that started it all — RL-trained chain-of-thought, MIT licensed, and a research landmark.
Qwen3-235B-A22B
69.0Alibaba (Qwen) · Jul 2025
The most popular open general-purpose Qwen: 235B MoE with hybrid thinking, a staple of the 2025 open-source ecosystem.
The verdict
Qwen3-235B-A22B wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for DeepSeek R1 (0528). Qwen3-235B-A22B is about 2.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-235B-A22B also takes 262K of context versus 128K for DeepSeek R1 (0528).
Benchmark head-to-head 1–3
Specs & pricing
| DeepSeek R1 (0528) | Qwen3-235B-A22B | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 67.8 | 69.0 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.55 | $0.22 |
| Output price / 1M | $2.19 | $0.88 |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 64K | 33K |
| Open weights | yes (MIT) | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 |
| Released | May 2025 | Jul 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $8.79 | $3.52 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, DeepSeek R1 (0528) or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- Qwen3-235B-A22B wins 3 of the 4 benchmarks these models share, against 1 for DeepSeek R1 (0528). Qwen3-235B-A22B is about 2.5x cheaper per blended million tokens (3:1 input:output mix). Qwen3-235B-A22B also takes 262K of context versus 128K for DeepSeek R1 (0528).
- Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 (0528) or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- DeepSeek R1 (0528) costs $0.55/$2.19 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-235B-A22B costs $0.22/$0.88. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $8.79 versus $3.52.
- Which model is better for coding, DeepSeek R1 (0528) or Qwen3-235B-A22B?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.
More comparisons
DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5.5Qwen3-235B-A22B vs GPT-5.5DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5.2Qwen3-235B-A22B vs GPT-5.2DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5.1Qwen3-235B-A22B vs GPT-5.1DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5Qwen3-235B-A22B vs GPT-5DeepSeek R1 (0528) vs GPT-5 miniQwen3-235B-A22B vs GPT-5 miniDeepSeek R1 (0528) vs OpenAI o3Qwen3-235B-A22B vs OpenAI o3