Command R+ vs DeepSeek V3
Pricing, benchmarks, and use case comparison
Quick take
- •DeepSeek V3 is meaningfully stronger at cost efficiency (92 vs 60).
- •DeepSeek V3 is open-weights (free to self-host); Command R+ is paid API only.
Specs comparison
| Command R+ | DeepSeek V3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | DeepSeek |
| Type | Closed source | Open source |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Input / 1M tokens | $2.50 | ✓Free (self-host) |
| Output / 1M tokens | $10.00 | Free (self-host) |
| Release date | 2024-08 | 2024-12 |
Benchmarks
| Benchmark | Command R+ | DeepSeek V3 |
|---|---|---|
| RAG (BEIR) | Top-5 | - |
| MMLU | ~75% | - |
| Pre-training scale | - | ~15T tokens |
Scores sourced from official provider release posts and independent benchmark aggregators.
Which should you choose?
Choose Command R+ if...
- →Your core use case is grounded RAG with citations
- →You need reliable multi-step tool/agent orchestration
- →You want an enterprise model available on Bedrock
- →You need multilingual responses across the 10 optimized languages
Choose DeepSeek V3 if...
- →You want a proven, stable open model with broad ecosystem support
- →You need to self-host or fine-tune without licensing friction
- →Cost is critical and you don't need V4's 1M context or top scores
- →You want reproducible open-weight behavior pinned to a known version