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Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs DeepSeek VL2 Small

Comparing Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Anthropic · DeepSeek · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Sonnet 4.5

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

Choose DeepSeek VL2 Small

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Sonnet 4.5
Anthropic
DeepSeek VL2 Small
DeepSeek
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$3.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$15.00 / M
— / M
Context window
200,000
—
Released
Sep 2025
Dec 2024
License
Proprietary
deepseek

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Smalldon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only Claude Sonnet 4.5 specifies output context (64,000 tokens).

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 4.5
Input200,000 tokens
Output64,000 tokens
DeepSeek
DeepSeek VL2 Small
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Wed Aug 26 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

DeepSeek VL2 Small

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while DeepSeek VL2 Small uses deepseek.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Proprietary

Closed source

DeepSeek VL2 Small

deepseek

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 4.5 was released on 2025-09-29, while DeepSeek VL2 Small was released on 2024-12-13.

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is 10 months newer than DeepSeek VL2 Small.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Sep 29, 2025

11 months ago

9mo newer
DeepSeek VL2 Small

Dec 13, 2024

1.7 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 4.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-01-31, while DeepSeek VL2 Small's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Sonnet 4.5's training data extends to 2025-01-31, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek VL2 Small's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 4.5

Jan 2025

DeepSeek VL2 Small

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 4.5
✓ Preferred
DeepSeek VL2 Small
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs DeepSeek VL2 Small.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 4.5 or DeepSeek VL2 Small?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 (Anthropic) and DeepSeek VL2 Small (DeepSeek) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Claude Sonnet 4.5 compare to DeepSeek VL2 Small in benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores MMMLU: 89.1%, AIME 2025: 87.0%, TAU-bench Retail: 86.2%, GPQA: 83.4%, MMMUval: 77.8%. DeepSeek VL2 Small scores DocVQA: 92.3%, ChartQA: 84.5%, OCRBench: 83.4%, TextVQA: 83.4%, MMBench: 80.3%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 supports 200K tokens and DeepSeek VL2 Small supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small?

Key differences include licensing (Proprietary vs deepseek). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 4.5 and DeepSeek VL2 Small?

Claude Sonnet 4.5 is developed by Anthropic and DeepSeek VL2 Small is developed by DeepSeek.

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