Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine still saying this after open weight models being released everywhere and the likes of DeepSeek keeping their prices at the lowest possible for more than good enough intelligence that even Microsoft is migrating to deploy DeepSeek's models.
I use DeepSeek. I'm very familiar with open models. I run a popular benchmark to check their progress. DeepSeek is somewhere between Sonnet and Opus in capability, for much lower price. Their $0.87 per million output tokens is one of the few API offerings that is probably subsidized (the break-even price is probably around $2 judging by[1]) I think Anthropic and OpenAI's margins will erode some over time. But I think…
I use it as something that sits right below Sonnet for daily tasks that can be run in loops with validation checks, perfect. Anything more advanced...it just doesn't cut it.
Same experience with z-ai glm 5.1 btw... don't know what system prompt magic antrophic set in front of their Sonnet 4.6, but it does execute tasks efficiently.
claiming any of these deepseek models are close to opus is a bit optimistic