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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B vs Claude Opus 4 vs QwQ 32B

Claude Opus 4 comes out ahead, 64 to 52 and 47 on our weighted score, though QwQ 32B is 40× cheaper per token.

  1. DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B

    Released Jan 20, 2025

    47/100
    • ECI137.4
    • Price—
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B
  2. Our pick

    Anthropic

    Claude Opus 4

    Released May 22, 2025

    64/100
    • ECI142.7
    • Price$15.00 / $75.00
    • Context200K
    Full specs Remove Claude Opus 4

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    QwQ 32B

    Released Mar 5, 2025

    52/100
    • ECI137.6
    • Price$0.66 / $1.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove QwQ 32B
01 — Verdict

Claude Opus 4 is our pick

Claude Opus 4 is the better all-round choice, scoring 64/100 against QwQ 32B (52) and DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B (47). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

  • CapabilityClaude Opus 4Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 4 142.7 · QwQ 32B 137.6 · DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 137.4
  • Lowest priceQwQ 32BQwQ 32B $0.745 · Claude Opus 4 $30.00 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B unpriced
  • Longest contextClaude Opus 4Claude Opus 4 200,000 · DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 131,072 · QwQ 32B 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsClaude Opus 4DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B: Text · Claude Opus 4: Text, Images, PDFs · QwQ 32B: Text
  • Self-hostingDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B and QwQ 32BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32BClaude Opus 4QwQ 32B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)67%626962
Inputs & features20%107035
Context window13%243224
Overall100%47/10064/10052/100

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-Distill-Qwen-32B vs Claude Opus 4 vs QwQ 32B specifications side by side
SpecificationDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32BDeepSeekClaude Opus 4AnthropicQwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)137.4142.7 (best)137.6
ECI rank#110 of 148#87 of 148 (best)#109 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions64.1%76.3% (best)65.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics55.6%64.4% (best)59.2%
SWE-bench VerifiedFixing real GitHub issues—70.7%—
Price per million tokens
Input—$15.00$0.66 (best)
Output—$75.00$1.00 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)—$30.00$0.745 (best)
Long-context rate—Same rateSame rate
Price source—Median of 5 providersMedian of 1 providers
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens200,000 tokens (best)131,072 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens (best)32,000 tokens8,192 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoYesNo
PDFsNoYesNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingNoYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenProprietaryOpen
API model ID———
API providers—5 (best)1
ReleasedJan 20, 2025May 22, 2025Mar 5, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Mar 31, 2025Apr 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-Distill-Qwen-32B—
  • Claude Opus 4$300.00
  • QwQ 32B$8.60
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Claude Opus 4 or QwQ 32B?

Claude Opus 4 is the better all-round choice, scoring 64/100 against QwQ 32B (52) and DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B (47). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Claude Opus 4 or QwQ 32B?

QwQ 32B is cheaper at $0.66 input / $1.00 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Claude Opus 4 costs $15.00 input / $75.00 output per million tokens (median across 5 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.745 per million tokens for QwQ 32B versus $30.00 for Claude Opus 4 (40× as much). DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Claude Opus 4 scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Claude Opus 4 142.7 (#87 of 148), QwQ 32B 137.6 (#109 of 148) and DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 137.4 (#110 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (140.2–144.2 vs 133.1–141.7), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Claude Opus 4 76.3%, QwQ 32B 65.3%, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 64.1%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Claude Opus 4 64.4%, QwQ 32B 59.2%, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 55.6%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B and QwQ 32B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Claude Opus 4 leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Note that DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Which has the bigger context window?

Claude Opus 4 has the largest context window at 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B and 131,072 for QwQ 32B. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B up to 32,768, Claude Opus 4 up to 32,000, QwQ 32B up to 8,192 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B accepts text; Claude Opus 4 accepts text, images and PDFs; QwQ 32B accepts text. Claude Opus 4 handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B and QwQ 32B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Claude Opus 4 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Claude Opus 4 is the newest, released May 22, 2025. QwQ 32B came out Mar 5, 2025; DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B came out Jan 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Claude Opus 4 Mar 31, 2025, QwQ 32B Apr 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 Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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