DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs GPT-4o mini
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and GPT-4o mini are closely matched at -2.7 and 3.9 on the LLM Stats Score.
DeepSeek · OpenAI · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and GPT-4o mini are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -2.7 and 3.9.
In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, GPT-4o mini wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jan 2025
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Choose GPT-4o mini
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
4 reported for DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B · 9 for GPT-4o mini
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while GPT-4o mini is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).
GPT-4o mini significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only GPT-4o mini specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only GPT-4o mini specifies output context (16,384 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
GPT-4o mini supports multimodal inputs, whereas DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B does not.
GPT-4o mini can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B
GPT-4o mini
License
Usage and distribution terms
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is licensed under MIT, while GPT-4o mini uses a proprietary license.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Proprietary
Closed source
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B was released on 2025-01-20, while GPT-4o mini was released on 2024-07-18.
DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B is 6 months newer than GPT-4o mini.
Jan 20, 2025
1.6 years ago
6mo newerJul 18, 2024
2.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
GPT-4o mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-10-01, while DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm GPT-4o mini's training data extends to 2023-10-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B's cutoff date.
—
Oct 2023
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B and GPT-4o mini side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B vs GPT-4o mini.