DeepSeek-R1 vs Grok 3 Mini

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

DeepSeek-R1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 36 to 23. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

DeepSeek-R1's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 78.3 against 39.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is AIME 2024, 79.8% to 39.7%. Grok 3 Mini does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

DeepSeek-R1 is also the more expensive model on tokens at $0.55 input / $2.19 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.30 input / $0.50 output per 1M tokens for Grok 3 Mini. That is roughly 4.4x on output cost alone. DeepSeek-R1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while Grok 3 Mini is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek-R1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Grok 3 Mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Coding

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

65.9

Grok 3 Mini

41.5

36%
HumanEval
Coming soon
65.9%
LiveCodeBench
41.5%
49.2%
SWE-bench Verified
Coming soon

Multimodal & Grounded

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Reasoning

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

35.6

Grok 3 Mini

21.7

30.1%
SimpleQA
21.7%
40%
MuSR
Coming soon

Knowledge

Grok 3 Mini

DeepSeek-R1

68.9

Grok 3 Mini

74.1

90.8%
MMLU
Coming soon
71.5%
GPQA
66.2%
41%
SuperGPQA
Coming soon
39%
OpenBookQA
Coming soon
84%
MMLU-Pro
78.9%

Instruction Following

Coming soon

Comparable scores for this category are coming soon. One or both models do not have sourced results here yet.

83.3%
IFEval
Coming soon

Multilingual

Coming soon

Benchmark data for this category is coming soon.

Mathematics

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

78.3

Grok 3 Mini

39.7

44%
AIME 2023
Coming soon
79.8%
AIME 2024
39.7%
45%
AIME 2025
Coming soon
40%
HMMT Feb 2023
Coming soon
42%
HMMT Feb 2024
Coming soon
41%
HMMT Feb 2025
Coming soon
43%
BRUMO 2025
Coming soon
97.3%
MATH-500
Coming soon

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 3 Mini?

DeepSeek-R1 is ahead overall, 36 to 23. The biggest single separator in this matchup is AIME 2024, where the scores are 79.8% and 39.7%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 3 Mini?

Grok 3 Mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.1 versus 68.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 3 Mini?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 65.9 versus 41.5. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 3 Mini?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 78.3 versus 39.7. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek-R1 or Grok 3 Mini?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 35.6 versus 21.7. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 17, 2026

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