DeepSeek’s Flash Model Beats Opus 5 on Coding — And Its Web Search Costs 85% Less Than Rivals
Reading Time: 5 minutesDeepSeek released V4.1-Flash-1017, a free MIT-licensed model that outscores Claude Opus 5 on a coding benchmark, alongside web Search and Fetch tools priced 85% below rivals. The release intensifies pressure on closed-model pricing while raising data-security and geopolitical considerations developers cannot ignore.