DeepSeek-V4-Pro vs Kimi K3
The two heavyweights of open AI. DeepSeek-V4-Pro is the stronger pure coder and has the more permissive licence; Kimi K3 leads on web research, reads images and video, and ranked higher overall at launch.
Choose DeepSeek-V4-Pro if
- Competitive programming and maths — a Codeforces rating of 3206.
- The plainest licence there is: MIT.
- A mode that answers without thinking first.
Choose Kimi K3 if
- Research agents that browse — 91.2% on BrowseComp, first at launch.
- Images and video as well as text.
- Overall capability — third on the Artificial Analysis index at launch.
Side by side
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro | Kimi K3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | DeepSeek | Moonshot AI |
| Released | April 2026 | July 2026 |
| Input price, per 1M tokens | $1.56 | $3.705 |
| Output price, per 1M tokens | $3.12 | $18.525 |
| Cached input, per 1M tokens | $0.234 | $0.351 |
| Batch (about half price) | No | No |
| Context window | 1M tokens | 1.05M tokens |
| Longest answer | 384K tokens | — |
| Reads | Text | Text, Images, Video |
| Thinks before answering | Yes, adjustable | Always on |
| Open weights | Yes, MIT | Yes, Kimi K3 License |
| Runs in Sri Lanka | No | No |
Prices are Roar AI’s published rates, live from our price list. Specs are each lab’s own published figures.
What a real job costs
Take 1,000 requests, each about 3,000 tokens in and 1,000 out — a long prompt and a page of answer.
DeepSeek-V4-Pro does the same job for 3.8× less. Models that think before answering spend extra output tokens doing it, so on hard prompts the real gap can be wider than the rates suggest.
Use both, switch any time
On Roar AI both are on the same key and the same monthly invoice, billed in rupees. Trying the other one is a one-word change:
client.chat.completions.create(model="deepseek-v4-pro", …) client.chat.completions.create(model="kimi-k3", …)
Send the same prompts to both for a day and compare the answers on your own work — that settles it faster than any benchmark. Read the docs.