DeepSeek-R1 vs LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

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

DeepSeek-R1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 43 to 30. 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 agentic, where it averages 44.5 against 25.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LongBench v2, 58 to 34. LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct does hit back in instruction following, 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 $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. DeepSeek-R1 is the reasoning model in the pair, while LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct 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. DeepSeek-R1 gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 32K for LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek-R1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you want the cheaper token bill.

Agentic

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

44.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

25.7

42
Terminal-Bench 2.0
22
49
BrowseComp
31
44
OSWorld-Verified
26

Coding

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

21.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

7.2

36
HumanEval
14
17
SWE-bench Verified
9
19
LiveCodeBench
8
25
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

47.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.4

43
MMMU-Pro
27
53
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

50.9

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.1

42
SimpleQA
24
40
MuSR
22
66
BBH
59
58
LongBench v2
34
57
MRCRv2
37

Knowledge

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

37.9

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

26

44
MMLU
26
43
GPQA
25
41
SuperGPQA
23
39
OpenBookQA
21
52
MMLU-Pro
50
14
HLE
1
44
FrontierScience
30

Instruction Following

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

DeepSeek-R1

69

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

80

69
IFEval
80

Multilingual

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

DeepSeek-R1

60.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

60.7

61
MGSM
62
60
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

52.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

37

44
AIME 2023
24
46
AIME 2024
26
45
AIME 2025
25
40
HMMT Feb 2023
20
42
HMMT Feb 2024
22
41
HMMT Feb 2025
21
43
BRUMO 2025
23
64
MATH-500
54

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 is ahead overall, 43 to 30. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LongBench v2, where the scores are 58 and 34.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 37.9 versus 26. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 21.5 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 52.5 versus 37. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 50.9 versus 32.1. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 44.5 versus 25.7. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 47.5 versus 32.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 80 versus 69. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, DeepSeek-R1 or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 60.7 versus 60.4. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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