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Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs DeepSeek VL2

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 2.9.

Anthropic · DeepSeek · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 2.9, ranking #3 overall.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 also accepts a larger context window (1,000,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Claude Sonnet 5.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 58.0 and ranks #3 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,000,000 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2026

Choose DeepSeek VL2

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic
DeepSeek VL2
DeepSeek
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
58.0
#3
2.9
#319
Reasoning
56.6
#3
-1.9
#337
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$10.00 / M
— / M
Context window
1,000,000
129,280

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
DeepSeek VL2
Vision
40.0#3
2.1#174
Multimodal
40.1#2
5.1#144
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

47 reported for Claude Sonnet 5.5 · 14 for DeepSeek VL2

No common benchmarks found

Claude Sonnet 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2don't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Claude Sonnet 5.5 accepts 1,000,000 input tokens compared to DeepSeek VL2's 129,280 tokens. DeepSeek VL2 can generate longer responses up to 129,280 tokens, while Claude Sonnet 5.5 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Anthropic
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
DeepSeek
DeepSeek VL2
Input129,280 tokens
Output129,280 tokens
Wed Sep 30 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Claude Sonnet 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2 support multimodal inputs.

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

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

DeepSeek VL2

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while DeepSeek VL2 uses deepseek.

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

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Proprietary

Closed source

DeepSeek VL2

deepseek

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Claude Sonnet 5.5 was released on 2026-09-28, while DeepSeek VL2 was released on 2024-12-13.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is 22 months newer than DeepSeek VL2.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Sep 28, 2026

1 days ago

1.8yr newer
DeepSeek VL2

Dec 13, 2024

1.8 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-06-01, while DeepSeek VL2's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Claude Sonnet 5.5's training data extends to 2026-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek VL2's cutoff date.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

Jun 2026

DeepSeek VL2

—

Provider Availability

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is available from Anthropic. DeepSeek VL2 is available from Replicate.

Claude Sonnet 5.5

anthropic logo
Anthropic
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $10.00/1M

DeepSeek VL2

replicate logo
Replicate
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Claude Sonnet 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Claude Sonnet 5.5
✓ Preferred
DeepSeek VL2
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs DeepSeek VL2.

Which is better, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or DeepSeek VL2?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 58.0 to 2.9. Claude Sonnet 5.5 is made by Anthropic and DeepSeek VL2 is made by DeepSeek. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Claude Sonnet 5.5 compare to DeepSeek VL2 in benchmarks?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores BenchCAD (with Python tool): 96.3%, ArXivMath (with tools): 95.2%, Global-MMLU: 92.1%, MILU: 91.6%, SWE-bench Multilingual: 90.3%. DeepSeek VL2 scores DocVQA: 93.3%, ChartQA: 86.0%, TextVQA: 84.2%, AI2D: 81.4%, OCRBench: 81.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Claude Sonnet 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 supports 1.0M tokens and DeepSeek VL2 supports 129K 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 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (58.0 vs 2.9), context window (1.0M vs 129K), licensing (Proprietary vs deepseek). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Claude Sonnet 5.5 and DeepSeek VL2?

Claude Sonnet 5.5 is developed by Anthropic and DeepSeek VL2 is developed by DeepSeek.

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