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

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

DeepSeek-R1 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 43 to 33. 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 multimodal & grounded, where it averages 47.5 against 32.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 36 to 17. LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking 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-Thinking. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. DeepSeek-R1 gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 32K for LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek-R1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking 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-Thinking

34.1

42
Terminal-Bench 2.0
34
49
BrowseComp
37
44
OSWorld-Verified
32

Coding

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

21.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

8.2

36
HumanEval
17
17
SWE-bench Verified
10
19
LiveCodeBench
9
25
SWE-bench Pro
7

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

47.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

32.4

43
MMMU-Pro
27
53
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

50.9

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

38.4

42
SimpleQA
29
40
MuSR
31
66
BBH
67
58
LongBench v2
39
57
MRCRv2
42

Knowledge

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

37.9

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

27

44
MMLU
27
43
GPQA
26
41
SuperGPQA
24
39
OpenBookQA
22
52
MMLU-Pro
51
14
HLE
2
44
FrontierScience
31

Instruction Following

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

DeepSeek-R1

69

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

72

69
IFEval
72

Multilingual

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

DeepSeek-R1

60.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

60.7

61
MGSM
62
60
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek-R1

52.5

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking

42.3

44
AIME 2023
28
46
AIME 2024
30
45
AIME 2025
29
40
HMMT Feb 2023
24
42
HMMT Feb 2024
26
41
HMMT Feb 2025
25
43
BRUMO 2025
27
64
MATH-500
61

Frequently Asked Questions

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

DeepSeek-R1 is ahead overall, 43 to 33. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 36 and 17.

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

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 37.9 versus 27. 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-Thinking?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 21.5 versus 8.2. 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-Thinking?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 52.5 versus 42.3. 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-Thinking?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 50.9 versus 38.4. 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-Thinking?

DeepSeek-R1 has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 44.5 versus 34.1. Inside this category, BrowseComp 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-Thinking?

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-Thinking?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 72 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-Thinking?

LFM2.5-1.2B-Thinking 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

Weekly LLM Benchmark Digest

Get notified when new models drop, benchmark scores change, or the leaderboard shifts. One email per week.

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We only store derived location metadata for consent routing.