DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Sonar
Side-by-side specs, pricing and capabilities. Both models run on Clade under one subscription, so you can switch between them in the same conversation.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash comes from DeepSeek and Sonar from Perplexity. The practical difference for most people is context, price, and which input types each one accepts.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash holds more in a single conversation — 1M tokens against 128K — which matters for long documents and large codebases.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash is the cheaper of the two on input tokens at $0.30 / 1M tokens.
| Specification | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | Sonar |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Perplexity |
| Model ID | deepseek-flash | sonar |
| Context window | 1M | 128K |
| Max output | 384K | — |
| Input price | $0.30 / 1M tokens | $1.00 / 1M tokens |
| Output price | $1.20 / 1M tokens | $1.00 / 1M tokens |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
| Input types | text, image | text, image, file |
| Output types | text | text |
| Plan | All paid plans | All paid plans |
Which should you use?
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash when…
- You need the larger context window — 1M against 128K.
- Cost matters: input runs at $0.30 / 1M tokens versus $1.00 / 1M tokens.
- You want longer single responses — up to 384K output tokens.
Related comparisons
Try both on Clade
You do not have to choose. One Clade subscription gives you DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Sonar, and every other model on the platform.