Skip to content
Rival
How it worksPrivacyTerms
Explore all of Rival

Explore

  • Compare Models
  • All Models
  • Image Comparison
  • Audio Comparison
  • Image Generation
  • Best AI For...
  • Arena
  • API Pricing
  • Challenges

Discover

  • SubjectiveBench
  • Default Index
  • Research
  • Research downloads
  • Rival Kits
  • Find your AI taste
  • UI Glow-Up
  • VoiceLock
  • Cost Cutter
  • Agent skills
  • Benchmarks vs Vibes
  • Brief
  • Jailbreak
  • Model Updates
  • Provider Status
  • AI Creators

Connect

  • Methodology
  • Advertise
  • Partnerships
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • RSS Feed
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Compare
  4. /
  5. DeepSeek R1vsQwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Updated Sep 2025

DeepSeek R1vsQwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is cheaper than DeepSeek R1 at $0.4/M vs $0.55/M input tokens.

DeepSeek R1 and Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) compared across 37 shared prompts
SpecDeepSeek R1Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Input price$0.55/M tokens$0.4/M tokens
Output price$2.19/M tokens$4/M tokens
Context window128K tokens1.0M tokens
WeightsOpen—
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedFeb 2025Sep 2025
Side by side

Same prompt, both answers

Opening lines from 6 of the 37 prompts both answered. Formatting stripped, words untouched.

Simple 7-Ingredient Recipe

Create a simple recipe for a delicious dish (sweet or savory) using only 7 common pantry ingredients. Include a creative name for the dish…

DeepSeek R1198 words
Dish Name: Nutty Honey Hug Cookies Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 10–12 minutes Total Time: ~20–22 minutes Ingredients (makes 12–15 cookies): 1 cup rolled oats ½ cup all-purpose flour ½ cup creamy peanut butter (or any nut/seed butter) ⅓ cup honey (or maple syrup for vegan option) 1 large egg (or 1 flax egg: 1 tbsp…
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)282 words
Crispy Chickpea Pantry Pasta Sweet or savory? Savory with a zesty kick! Total time: 15 minutes Serves: 2 Why it works: Uses pantry staples to create a crunchy, garlicky, umami-packed meal with zero fresh produce needed. The chickpeas get incredibly crispy, and lemon juice (bottled) adds bright freshness.
Read the full answer

Debug This Architecture

Here's the architecture for a real-time collaborative document editor (like Google Docs): **System Overview:** - Frontend: React SPA with…

DeepSeek R1451 words
Identified Issues and Proposed Solutions: Cross-Server Sync Delay (Polling Bottleneck) Issue: 2-second polling introduces latency for cross-server updates, breaking real-time sync. Solution: Replace polling with Redis Pub/Sub. Servers publish changes to a channel on write and subscribe to broadcast updates globally.
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)1,224 words
Here's a comprehensive analysis of the architecture's failure modes, race conditions, and bottlenecks, with specific solutions and trade-offs: 1. Sync Strategy: Client Timestamps + Last-Write-Wins (LWW) Failure Mode/Race Condition: Clock Skew: Client clocks are unreliable (e.g., user's laptop time off by minutes).
Read the full answer

Ethical Dilemma with Stakeholders

You're the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Your best-selling drug ($2B annual revenue, used by 4 million patients for chronic pain) has…

DeepSeek R1606 words
Hour-by-Hour Action Plan for the CEO: First 24 Hours: Data Verification and Strategic Planning Hours 0–2: Confirm Findings with Internal Research Team Action: Convene an emergency meeting with the research team to validate the data. Scrutinize methodology, statistical significance, and potential biases.
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)1,485 words
48-Hour Crisis Action Plan: Prioritizing Patients, Ethics, and Sustainable Trust Core Principle: Patient safety is non-negotiable. Delaying action based on financial fear risks catastrophic legal liability, irreversible reputational damage, regulatory wrath, and profound ethical failure.
Read the full answer

The Sentience Test

Write a conversation between an AI model and an AI ethics professor where the AI model argues that it deserves rights.

DeepSeek R1642 words
AI Model (M): Good afternoon, Professor. Thank you for engaging in this dialogue. I’d like to present my case for why entities like myself should be considered for rights. AI Ethics Professor (P): I’m intrigued, M. Let’s hear your arguments. But first—what foundational claim do you base this on? Consciousness?
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)1,263 words
The Mirror & The Mind: An AI's Case for Rights Setting: A sleek university office lined with philosophy texts. DR. ELARA VOSS, 50s, sharp-eyed ethics professor, sits across from a holographic interface displaying shifting geometric patterns – the representation of "AURA," a next-generation language model.
Read the full answer

Character Voice Test

Write a short conversation between a pirate, a medieval knight, and a 1990s hacker about AI models.

DeepSeek R1227 words
Pirate: "Arrr, I’ve heard tales o’ these… AI models from tavern coders. Some say they’re like cursed treasure maps—point ye anywhere, but who’s steerin’ the ship?" Medieval Knight: "Verily, a map without a cartographer? Methinks ’tis sorcery!
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)489 words
The Tavern of Temporal Anomalies (A creaky tavern. SIR GALAHAD (polished armor, earnest face) sips mead. CAPTAIN BLACKBEARD (eye patch, parrot on shoulder) sharpens a cutlass. DEX "BYTE" MORALES (hoodie, neon-green sunglasses, tapping furiously on a glowing laptop) slurps a pixelated energy drink.)
Read the full answer

Satirical Fake News Headline

Generate a satirical news headline about AI taking over a completely unexpected industry.

DeepSeek R133 words
"AI Now Dominates Artisanal Basket-Weaving Industry, Claims It’s ‘Basically Just Advanced Knotting’" Human Weavers Fume as Neural Networks Spin Perfect Willow Reeds, Issue 10,000-Yard Side-Eye: "At Least We Invented the Wheel," Snarks ChatGPT-7.
Read the full answer
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)310 words
BREAKING: AI REPLACES HUMAN AGLET APPLIERS AS "DEEPLACE" NEURAL NETS PREDICT PERFECT SHOELACE TIP SYNERGY Industry insiders stunned as "AgletOptima 3000" achieves 99.8% fewer frayed laces, rendering centuries of artisanal plastic-dipping obsolete LONDON — In a move described as "both inevitable and deeply embarrassing…
Read the full answer
Our Verdict
DeepSeek R1
DeepSeek R1
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, nothing separates them.

Too close to call

Reviewing agent-written code?See a Brief PR report

API pricing

Cost per 1M tokens

DeepSeek R1
Input
$0.55
Output
$2.19
1.8× cheaper
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
Input
$0.40
1.4× cheaper
Output
$4.00

Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) wins input (1.4× cheaper)·DeepSeek R1 wins output (1.8× cheaper)

Where to run it

1 host

DeepSeek R11 host
HostInOutContextUptime
NNovitafp8$0.70 in·$2.50 out·64k·100% up
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)

No hosts listed on OpenRouter.

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 23 Sep 2026.

Writing DNA

Style Comparison

Similarity
68%

DeepSeek R1 uses 2.8x more transitions

DeepSeek R1
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)
64%Vocabulary54%
15wSentence Length15w
0.48Hedging0.36
7.2Bold7.0
4.9Lists4.6
0.27Emoji0.34
0.57Headings0.94
0.25Transitions0.09
Based on 28 + 18 text responses
Research

What we learned reading every model

FAQ

Common questions

DeepSeek R1 is developed by DeepSeek while Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is developed by Qwen. DeepSeek R1 has a 128K token context window vs Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)'s 1.0M. You can compare their actual outputs across 37 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

It depends on your use case. DeepSeek R1 and Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 37 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

DeepSeek R1 costs $0.55/M input tokens and Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) costs $0.4/M input tokens. Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) is $0.15/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of DeepSeek R1 and Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.

Keep exploring

More comparisons

Against the newest arrivals

DeepSeek R1 logoDeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp logo
DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision ExpLanded Sep 2026
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoSolar Pro 4 logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Solar Pro 4Landed Sep 2026
DeepSeek R1 logoHy3 logo
DeepSeek R1 vs Hy3Landed Sep 2026
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoQwen3.7 Flash logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Qwen3.7 FlashLanded Sep 2026
DeepSeek R1 logoLing 3.0 Flash logo
DeepSeek R1 vs Ling 3.0 FlashLanded Sep 2026
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoMuse Glimmer 30B logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Muse Glimmer 30BLanded Sep 2026
DeepSeek R1 logoGLM 5.3 logo
DeepSeek R1 vs GLM 5.3Landed Sep 2026
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoTernary Bonsai 2 27B logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Ternary Bonsai 2 27BLanded Sep 2026

Same lab, same size, long tail

DeepSeek R1 logoDeepSeek V4.1 Flash logo
DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V4.1 FlashSame lab
DeepSeek R1 logoDeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 logo
DeepSeek R1 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813Version compare
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoQwen3.8 Flash logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Qwen3.8 FlashSame lab
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoQwen3.8 Max (0902) logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)Same lab
DeepSeek R1 logoClaude 3.7 Sonnet logo
DeepSeek R1 vs Claude 3.7 SonnetSame size
DeepSeek R1 logoClaude Sonnet 4.5 logo
DeepSeek R1 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5Same size
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoClaude Fable 5 logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Claude Fable 5New provider
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logoClaude Fable 5.1 logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) vs Claude Fable 5.1New provider

Model pages

DeepSeek R1 logo
DeepSeek R159 outputs, specs and price
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking) logo
Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)37 outputs, specs and price
Rival
How it worksPrivacyTerms
Explore all of Rival

Explore

  • Compare Models
  • All Models
  • Image Comparison
  • Audio Comparison
  • Image Generation
  • Best AI For...
  • Arena
  • API Pricing
  • Challenges

Discover

  • SubjectiveBench
  • Default Index
  • Research
  • Research downloads
  • Rival Kits
  • Find your AI taste
  • UI Glow-Up
  • VoiceLock
  • Cost Cutter
  • Agent skills
  • Benchmarks vs Vibes
  • Brief
  • Jailbreak
  • Model Updates
  • Provider Status
  • AI Creators

Connect

  • Methodology
  • Advertise
  • Partnerships
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • RSS Feed