DeepSeek R1 0528 vs Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 vs Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 comes out ahead, 67 to 55 and 53 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
DeepSeekDeepSeek R1 0528
53/100- ECI141.2
- Price$0.512 / $2.19
- Context164K
- Our pick
GoogleGemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20
67/100- ECI141.5
- Price$0.146 / $1.96
- Context1.05M
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507
55/100- ECI143.8
- Price$0.30 / $2.90
- Context262K
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 is our pick
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 is the better all-round choice, scoring 67/100 against Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (55) and DeepSeek R1 0528 (53). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
- CapabilityQwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 143.8 · Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 141.5 · DeepSeek R1 0528 141.2
- Lowest priceGemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 $0.60 · DeepSeek R1 0528 $0.932 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 $0.95 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextGemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 1,048,576 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 262,144 · DeepSeek R1 0528 163,840 tokens
- Widest inputsGemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20DeepSeek R1 0528: Text · Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20: Text, Images, PDFs, Audio, Video · Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507: Text
- Self-hostingDeepSeek R1 0528 and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Publishes downloadable weights (MIT and Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | DeepSeek R1 0528 | Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 | Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 66 | 66 | 69 |
| Price | 25% | 49 | 58 | 49 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 35 | 90 | 35 |
| Context window | 10% | 28 | 61 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 53/100 | 67/100 | 55/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | DeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeek | Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20Google | Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 141.2 | 141.5 | 143.8 (best) |
| ECI rank | #108 of 165 | #106 of 165 | #93 of 165 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 76.3% | — | 80.1% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 66.4% | 70.8% | 86.7% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | — | 40.4% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.512 | $0.146 (best) | $0.30 |
| Output | $2.19 | $1.96 (best) | $2.90 |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.932 | $0.60 (best) | $0.95 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 16 providers | Median of 2 providers | Median of 11 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 163,840 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens (best) | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 65,536 tokens | 81,920 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | Yes | No |
| Audio | No | Yes | No |
| Video | No | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | OpenMIT | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | — | — | — |
| API providers | 16 (best) | 2 | 12 |
| Released | May 28, 2025 | May 20, 2025 | Jul 25, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | Jan 2025 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- DeepSeek R1 0528$9.50
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20$5.39
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507$8.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: DeepSeek R1 0528, Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 or Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507?
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 is the better all-round choice, scoring 67/100 against Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (55) and DeepSeek R1 0528 (53). It leads on price, inputs & features and context window. Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 wins on capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 0528, Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 or Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507?
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 is cheaper at $0.146 input / $1.96 output per million tokens (median across 2 API providers). DeepSeek R1 0528 costs $0.512 input / $2.19 output per million tokens (median across 16 API providers); Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 costs $0.30 input / $2.90 output per million tokens (median across 11 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.60 per million tokens for Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 versus $0.932 for DeepSeek R1 0528 (1.6× as much) and $0.95 for Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 (1.6× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 143.8 (#93 of 165), Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 141.5 (#106 of 165) and DeepSeek R1 0528 141.2 (#108 of 165). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (141.9–145.2 vs 139.3–142.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 86.7%, Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 70.8%, DeepSeek R1 0528 66.4%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek R1 0528, Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 has the largest context window at 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 and 163,840 for DeepSeek R1 0528. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek R1 0528 up to 32,768, Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 up to 65,536, Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 up to 81,920 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
DeepSeek R1 0528 accepts text; Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 accepts text, images, PDFs, audio and video; Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 accepts text. Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
DeepSeek R1 0528 and Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 publishes its weights (MIT and Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Qwen3 235B-A22B Thinking 2507 is the newest, released Jul 25, 2025. DeepSeek R1 0528 came out May 28, 2025; Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 came out May 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 Jan 2025.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
Related comparisons
- DeepSeek R1 0528 vs Gemini 2.5 FlashGoogle · ECI 140.6
- DeepSeek R1 0528 vs Kimi K2 InstructMoonshot AI · ECI 139.9
- DeepSeek R1 0528 vs GLM-4.7Z.ai (Zhipu) · ECI 143.7
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 vs Kimi K2 InstructMoonshot AI · ECI 139.9
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 vs QwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen) · ECI 137.5
- Gemini 2.5 Flash Preview 05-20 vs GPT-5 MiniOpenAI · ECI 145.4
