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AI model comparison

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Granite 4.2 8B

Side by side comparison of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Granite 4.2 8B on pricing, benchmark scores, context window, and more.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is a sparse mixture-of-experts model from DeepSeek, and the first built on the company's Causal Encoder-Decoder (CED) architecture.

Input / 1M
$0.05
Output / 1M
$0.50
Context
1.05M

Granite 4.2 8B is a dense reasoning model from IBM. It is suited for mathematics, code generation, multilingual dialogue, and agentic workflows that need multi-step reasoning.

Input / 1M
$0.06
Output / 1M
$0.15
Context
131K

Comparing image generators? Compare image models

At a glance

Quick verdict

How the two models stack up on the things people ask about most.

Lower price

ibm-granite logo

Granite 4.2 8B

1.7x cheaper for a typical chat

Higher intelligence score

Not available

Not enough benchmark data

Larger context window

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

1.05M vs 131K tokens

Newer release

deepseek logo

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

Released September 10, 2026

Benchmarks

Benchmark scores

Independent scores from Artificial Analysis. Higher is better.

Intelligence index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B5.1

Coding index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B22.4

Agentic index

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 FlashNot available
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B1.3

Pricing

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Granite 4.2 8B API pricing

Per-token API rates. Cheaper option highlighted.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B
Input tokensPer 1M tokens$0.05$0.06
Output tokensPer 1M tokens$0.50$0.15
Cached input (read)Per 1M tokens$0.01$0.02
Cache writePer 1M tokensNot availableNot available

What it costs in practice

Estimated cost per 1,000 requests at standard rates. Coding and long-document figures also show the cost when the input is already cached.

Chat message

2K in, 500 out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$0.34
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B$0.19

Coding task

30K in, 4K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$3.35$2.36 cached
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B$2.40$1.05 cached

Long document summary

150K in, 2K out

deepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash$7.75$2.80 cached
ibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B$9.30$2.55 cached

Specs

Context window and capabilities

How much each model can read, how much it can write, and what it accepts as input.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B
Context window1.05M tokens131K tokens
Max output944K tokens118K tokens
Input typesImage, TextText
Output typesTextText
Reasoning effort levelsMax, High, Low, NoneHigh, Low, None
Default reasoning effortHighHigh
Release dateSeptember 10, 2026August 31, 2026

Features

Supported features

API features available for each model.

Metricdeepseek logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flashibm-granite logoGranite 4.2 8B
Tool callingSupportedSupported
Structured outputsSupportedSupported
JSON modeSupportedSupported
ReasoningSupportedSupported
TemperatureSupportedSupported
Stop sequencesSupportedSupported
Deterministic seedSupportedSupported
Verbosity controlNot supportedNot supported

Our take

Granite 4.2 8B is 1.7x cheaper for a typical chat. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has the larger context window (1.05M vs 131K tokens). The right pick depends on your workload, so the quickest way to settle it is to send the same prompt to both and compare.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Granite 4.2 8B cheaper?

Granite 4.2 8B is cheaper for a typical chat (2K input tokens and 500 output tokens). Granite 4.2 8B costs $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.15 per 1M output tokens, while DeepSeek V4.1 Flash costs $0.05 per 1M input tokens and $0.50 per 1M output tokens.

Which has a bigger context window, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or Granite 4.2 8B?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash supports up to 1.05M tokens of context, compared with 131K for Granite 4.2 8B.

Can I use DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Granite 4.2 8B at the same time?

Yes. Shortcut Chat sends one prompt to multiple models at once, so you can see DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Granite 4.2 8B answer side by side and keep the better response.

deepseek logoibm-granite logo

Why choose? Ask both.

Send one prompt to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Granite 4.2 8B at the same time. Compare the answers side by side and keep the best one.

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