ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

DeepSeek R1 0528 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

Claude Haiku 4.5 comes out ahead, 66 to 60 and 58 on our weighted score, though DeepSeek R1 0528 is 2.1× cheaper per token.

  1. DeepSeek

    DeepSeek R1 0528

    Released May 28, 2025

    58/100
    • ECI141.2
    • Price$0.512 / $2.19
    • Context164K
  2. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released Oct 15, 2025

    66/100
    • ECI142.2
    • Price$1.00 / $5.00
    • Context200K
  3. ByteDance Seed

    Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

    Released Aug 20, 2025

    60/100
    • ECI—
    • Price—
    • Context524K
01 — Verdict

Claude Haiku 4.5 is our pick

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and DeepSeek R1 0528 (58). It leads on inputs & features. DeepSeek R1 0528 wins on capability. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

  • CapabilityDeepSeek R1 0528Shared benchmarks: DeepSeek R1 0528 71.4% · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% · Claude Haiku 4.5 68.9%
  • Lowest priceDeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeek R1 0528 $0.932 · Claude Haiku 4.5 $2.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
  • Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Claude Haiku 4.5 200,000 · DeepSeek R1 0528 163,840 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Haiku 4.5DeepSeek R1 0528: Text · Claude Haiku 4.5: Text, Images, PDFs · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text
  • Self-hostingDeepSeek R1 0528 and Seed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (MIT and Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightDeepSeek R1 0528Claude Haiku 4.5Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
CapabilityShared benchmarks67%716970
Inputs & features20%358035
Context window13%283249
Overall100%58/10066/10060/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

DeepSeek R1 0528 vs Claude Haiku 4.5 vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct specifications side by side
SpecificationDeepSeek R1 0528DeepSeekClaude Haiku 4.5AnthropicSeed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.2142.2 (best)—
ECI rank#108 of 165#102 of 165 (best)—
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions76.3% (best)71.2%71.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics66.4%66.7%67.5% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—13.2%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.512 (best)$1.00—
Output$2.19 (best)$5.00—
Cached input—$0.10—
Blended (3:1)$0.932 (best)$2.00—
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate—
Price sourceMedian of 16 providersOfficial Anthropic API—
Limits
Context window163,840 tokens200,000 tokens524,288 tokens (best)
Max output32,768 tokens64,000 tokens524,288 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputNoYesNo
Availability
WeightsOpenMITProprietaryOpenApache 2.0
API model ID—claude-haiku-4-5—
API providers1648 (best)—
ReleasedMay 28, 2025Oct 15, 2025Aug 20, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Feb 28, 2025Jul 2024
03 — Cost

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
  • Claude Haiku 4.5$20.00
  • Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: DeepSeek R1 0528, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the better all-round choice, scoring 66/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60) and DeepSeek R1 0528 (58). It leads on inputs & features. DeepSeek R1 0528 wins on capability. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek R1 0528, Claude Haiku 4.5 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?

DeepSeek R1 0528 is cheaper at $0.512 input / $2.19 output per million tokens (median across 16 API providers). Claude Haiku 4.5 costs $1.00 input / $5.00 output per million tokens (official Anthropic API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.932 per million tokens for DeepSeek R1 0528 versus $2.00 for Claude Haiku 4.5 (2.1× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): DeepSeek R1 0528 71.4%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% and Claude Haiku 4.5 68.9%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — DeepSeek R1 0528 76.3%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%, Claude Haiku 4.5 71.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%, Claude Haiku 4.5 66.7%, DeepSeek R1 0528 66.4%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek R1 0528, Claude Haiku 4.5 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, DeepSeek R1 0528 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?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 200,000 for Claude Haiku 4.5 and 163,840 for DeepSeek R1 0528. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek R1 0528 up to 32,768, Claude Haiku 4.5 up to 64,000, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

DeepSeek R1 0528 accepts text; Claude Haiku 4.5 accepts text, images and PDFs; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text. Claude Haiku 4.5 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

DeepSeek R1 0528 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (MIT and Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Claude Haiku 4.5 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Claude Haiku 4.5 is the newest, released Oct 15, 2025. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025; DeepSeek R1 0528 came out May 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Haiku 4.5 Feb 28, 2025, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.

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.