# Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs DeepSeek V3

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and DeepSeek V3 across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-deepseek-v3
- Last updated: September 29, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 4
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.7

## Quick Verdict

Pick Claude Sonnet 4.6 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only makes more sense when its price, context window, or workload-specific category wins matter more than the overall score.

## Summary

- Claude Sonnet 4.6 leads overall 56.13 to 31.86.
- The clearest category separation is in agentic, where the averages are 43.1 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 12.1 for DeepSeek V3.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is SWE-bench Verified in Coding, with scores of 79.6% and 42%.
- DeepSeek V3 is the cheaper option on output tokens, which matters if you expect large responses or heavy interactive use.
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 also has the larger context window at 200K.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Non-Reasoning | Non-Reasoning |
| Context | 200K | 128K |
| Overall Score | 56.13 | 31.86 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 26 | 6 |
| Pricing (input/output) | $3.00 / $15.00 | $0.27 / $1.10 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 43.1 (Supported · #51/117)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 12.1 (Estimated · #113/117)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 59.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld-Verified | 72.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | 67.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CyberGym | 65.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Gert Labs | 62.92% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 8.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| JobBench | 36.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals) | 57.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| ApprenticeBench | 2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 47 (Supported · #48/143)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 18.6 (Estimated · #131/143)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| SWE-bench Verified | 79.6% | 42% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| SWE-Rebench | 60.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| React Native Evals | 80.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Vibe Code Bench | 51.48% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| cursorBench31 | 48.8% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| FrontierCode 1.1 Main | 24.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals) | 82.1% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench (Vals) | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LiveCodeBench | Coming soon | 37.6% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 69.2 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 42.3 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 55.1 (#35/50)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| CharXiv | 77.4% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 52.8 (Supported · #54/169)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 30.2 (Estimated · #140/169)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 89.9% | 59.1% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| SuperGPQA | 95% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.2% | 75.9% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| HLE | 49% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA Diamond (Vals) | 85.6% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| MMLU-Pro (Vals) | 87.3% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: Directional only
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 46.6 (#88/124)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 38.2 (#103/124)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFEval | Coming soon | 86.1% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- Claude Sonnet 4.6 public-lane score: 48.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)
- DeepSeek V3 public-lane score: 26 (Unranked · 1 rankable row)

| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | DeepSeek V3 | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3) | 32.400% | 1.724% | Claude Sonnet 4.6 |
| FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4) | 8.300% | Coming soon | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, Claude Sonnet 4.6 or DeepSeek V3?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 is ahead overall on BenchLM right now.

### Where is the biggest gap between Claude Sonnet 4.6 and DeepSeek V3?

The widest category gap is in agentic, where the averages are 43.1 for Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 12.1 for DeepSeek V3.

### How many benchmarks does Claude Sonnet 4.6 cover on BenchLM?

Claude Sonnet 4.6 currently has 26 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does DeepSeek V3 cover on BenchLM?

DeepSeek V3 currently has 6 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/claude-sonnet-4-6-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [DeepSeek V3 vs GPT-6 Astra](/compare/deepseek-v3-vs-gpt-6-astra)
- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [DeepSeek V3 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-deepseek-v3)

## Explore More

- [Claude Sonnet 4.6 profile](/models/claude-sonnet-4-6)
- [DeepSeek V3 profile](/models/deepseek-v3)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)