DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) vs LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

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

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 70 to 30. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)'s sharpest advantage is in reasoning, where it averages 80.6 against 32.1. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 79 to 14.

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) 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 V3.2 (Thinking) gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 32K for LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct.

Quick Verdict

Pick DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) if you want the stronger benchmark profile. LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct only becomes the better choice if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Agentic

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

69.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

25.7

71
Terminal-Bench 2.0
22
70
BrowseComp
31
67
OSWorld-Verified
26

Coding

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

51.2

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

7.2

79
HumanEval
14
48
SWE-bench Verified
9
45
LiveCodeBench
8
58
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

71

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.4

66
MMMU-Pro
27
77
OfficeQA Pro
39

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.6

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

32.1

83
SimpleQA
24
81
MuSR
22
86
BBH
59
78
LongBench v2
34
78
MRCRv2
37

Knowledge

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

64.4

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

26

87
MMLU
26
85
GPQA
25
83
SuperGPQA
23
81
OpenBookQA
21
73
MMLU-Pro
50
22
HLE
1
77
FrontierScience
30

Instruction Following

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

80

85
IFEval
80

Multilingual

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

80.8

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

60.7

84
MGSM
62
79
MMLU-ProX
60

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking)

85.1

LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct

37

87
AIME 2023
24
89
AIME 2024
26
88
AIME 2025
25
83
HMMT Feb 2023
20
85
HMMT Feb 2024
22
84
HMMT Feb 2025
21
86
BRUMO 2025
23
84
MATH-500
54

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) is ahead overall, 70 to 30. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 79 and 14.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 64.4 versus 26. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 51.2 versus 7.2. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 85.1 versus 37. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 80.6 versus 32.1. Inside this category, SimpleQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 69.4 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 V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 71 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 V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 85 versus 80. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) or LFM2.5-1.2B-Instruct?

DeepSeek V3.2 (Thinking) has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.8 versus 60.7. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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