Comprehensive side-by-side LLM comparison
DeepSeek-R1 leads with 2.1% higher average benchmark score. Grok 2 offers 3.3K more tokens in context window than DeepSeek-R1. DeepSeek-R1 is $9.26 cheaper per million tokens. Grok 2 supports multimodal inputs. Both models have their strengths depending on your specific coding needs.
DeepSeek
DeepSeek-R1, released by DeepSeek on January 20, 2025, is a large reasoning model with 671 billion total parameters (37 billion active in its MoE architecture) designed for extended chain-of-thought reasoning. It features a 128K token context window and demonstrated strong performance on mathematics, coding, and scientific reasoning benchmarks at its release. DeepSeek-R1 targets complex analytical tasks, competitive programming, and applications requiring deep deliberative reasoning under an open MIT license.
xAI
Grok 2, released by xAI in August 2024, is a large language model with 131K token context window and native image understanding, developed with access to real-time information from the X platform. It features multimodal input capabilities and improved reasoning over its predecessor. Grok 2 targets conversational assistants, image analysis, and real-time information retrieval tasks via the xAI API.
5 months newer

Grok 2
xAI
2024-08-14

DeepSeek-R1
DeepSeek
2025-01-20
Cost per million tokens (USD)
DeepSeek-R1
Grok 2
Context window and performance specifications
Average performance across 1 common benchmarks
DeepSeek-R1
Grok 2
Performance comparison across key benchmark categories
DeepSeek-R1
Grok 2
Available providers and their performance metrics
DeepSeek-R1
DeepSeek
Grok 2
DeepSeek-R1
Grok 2
DeepSeek-R1
Grok 2
xAI