# Claude Opus 4.8 vs DeepSeek R1

As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in 5 of 5 shared categories: General LLM, Reasoning, Science, Long context, and Abstraction (ARC).

Claude Opus 4.8: $10 per 1M blended tokens.

DeepSeek R1: $1.15 per 1M blended tokens.

Claude Opus 4.8: closed weights.

DeepSeek R1: open weights.

- Which to pick, General LLM: As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in General LLM at #20 against #118.
- Which to pick, Reasoning: As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in Reasoning at #10 against #116.
- Which to pick, Science: As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in Science at #27 against #90.
- Which to pick, Long context: As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in Long context at #10 against #123.
- Which to pick, Abstraction (ARC): As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 leads DeepSeek R1 in Abstraction (ARC) at #12 against #77.

As of Oct 14, 2026, Claude Opus 4.8 is a former state-of-the-art holder in Coding › Web dev (since Jun 5, 2026; sources LMArena WebDev; methodology v1.0).

As of Oct 14, 2026, DeepSeek R1 is a former state-of-the-art holder in General LLM (since Jan 28, 2025; sources LMArena Text (style-controlled, overall); methodology v1.0).