Model comparison
DeepSeek-V3 vs Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 39.2 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
DeepSeek
StepFunSummary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 0 categories and Step 5 Preview in 2 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Step 5 Preview leads 38.0 to 20.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 35.8% for DeepSeek-V3 and 58.9% for Step 5 Preview.
- DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper at $0.24 / $0.90 per million input/output tokens, against $1 / $2.70 for Step 5 Preview.
- Step 5 Preview accepts more context: 1.02M tokens versus 164K.
- DeepSeek-V3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 39.2 | 43.8 |
| Released | 2024-12-26 | 2026-09-16 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 164K | 1.02M |
| Max output | 164K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.24 | $1 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.90 | $2.70 |
| Results tracked | 60 | 3 |
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Category by category
Coding Step 5 Preview leads
DeepSeek-V3: 41.9 (#99), Step 5 Preview: 50.6 (#40)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.8% | 58.9% |
| Aider Polyglot | 55.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1569 |
| WeirdML | 36.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 50% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 70.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1368 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 62.2% | — |
| HumanEval+ | 86.6% | — |
| MBPP+ | 73% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: —, Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| METR Time Horizons | 49.6% | — |
Reasoning Step 5 Preview leads
DeepSeek-V3: 20.0 (#226), Step 5 Preview: 38.0 (#58)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 20.9% |
| SimpleBench | 27.2% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 52.3% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 65.8% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1365 | — |
| DTBench | 64.8% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 60.9% | — |
| LMCA | 15.5% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 87.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.95 | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.1 | — |
| HellaSwag | 88.9% | — |
| LiveBench | 66.9% | — |
| PIQA | 84.7% | — |
| WinoGrande | 85.2% | — |
Math Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 30.4 (#208), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 37.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 40.3% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 73.5% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1373 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 75.5% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#147), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 67.6% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 72.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 26.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 53.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1352 | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 95.3% | — |
| MMLU | 87.2% | — |
| TriviaQA | 82.9% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 48.8 (#138), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1390 | — |
| LMArena French | 1386 | — |
| LMArena German | 1374 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1333 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1321 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1372 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1358 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 73.0 (#125), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 81.5% | — |
| IFEval | 83.2% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1345 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#248), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 50% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1353 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: 57.6 (#124), Step 5 Preview: —
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1375 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1364 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 77% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1472 | — |
| WildBench | 83% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 49.1% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Step 5 Preview?
Step 5 Preview is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.8 to 39.2 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 3.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Step 5 Preview's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Step 5 Preview?
DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.24 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Step 5 Preview lists at $1 and $2.70.
Is DeepSeek-V3 or Step 5 Preview better for coding?
Step 5 Preview scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.6 versus 41.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 5 Preview does, with 1.02M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Step 5 Preview share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Step 5 Preview has 3.