The meaningful difference
GPT-4.1 provides a managed million-token API and vision input; DeepSeek R1 is reasoning-specialized and provides MIT-licensed weights, but its full 671B model has much heavier infrastructure requirements.
Choose by workload
Choose GPT-4.1 when your priority is managed API workflows that need very long inputs and image support. Its relevant strengths include million-token context window and reliable instruction following.
Choose DeepSeek R1 when your priority is open-weight reasoning, math, and self-hosted control. Account for full model has demanding infrastructure needs before committing.
Specification comparison
| Measure | GPT-4.1 | DeepSeek R1 |
|---|---|---|
| Access | API | Open weights |
| License | Proprietary | MIT |
| Context | 1.0M | 131K |
| Provider-listed API input / 1M | $2.00 | $0.55 |
| Provider-listed API output / 1M | $8.00 | $2.19 |
| MMLU-Pro | 83.7 | 84 |
| GPQA Diamond | 66.3 | 71.5 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 54.6 | 49.2 |
| LiveCodeBench | 44.7 | 65.9 |
| SWE-Bench Pro | — | — |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | — | — |
Price scope: Listed token prices are provider API rates. Self-hosting hardware, infrastructure, engineering labor, and operations are not included.
A fair test for this pair
Evaluate GPT-4.1 through its API and R1 on your intended serving stack. Separate reasoning quality from retrieval over long inputs, then include hosting labor, latency, retries, and accepted-output cost.