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  1. Home/
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  3. DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Sonar Pro Search
Updated Apr 2026

DeepSeek V4 Pro vs Sonar Pro Search

DeepSeek V4 Pro is cheaper than Sonar Pro Search at $1.74/M vs $3/M input tokens.

Minimalist Landing Page

Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.

Loading the build
DeepSeek V4 Pro
Loading the build
Sonar Pro Search

Which answer wins?

Written rounds

23 prompts
  • Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Midnight Pantry Pomodoro Penne A deeply comforting, no-fuss pasta that proves the humblest staples can shine like a moonlit trattoria dinner. Ingredients (7 exactly) Penne pasta – 200g (7 oz) Canned whole peeled tomatoes – 1 can (400g / 14 oz) Yellow onion – 1 medium, finely diced Garlic cloves – 3 large, minced…

    Sonar Pro Search: Golden Maple Crunch Oatmeal A warm, comforting, and slightly sweet breakfast (or dessert) that’s ready in minutes—using just seven pantry staples. Ingredients Rolled oats (not instant) Water or milk (dairy or plant-based) Maple syrup Butter Salt Cinnamon Walnuts (or any nuts you have) Instructions Toast the Oats: In a…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: (Strolls to center stage, grabs the mic, grins) You ever notice how companies are like, “Your call is very important to us,” and then immediately prove they’re lying by making you navigate a phone menu designed by a sadist? I called my bank last week because I had a simple question. Just one question.

    Sonar Pro Search: 3-Minute Stand-Up Comedy Routine (Pun-Free) Hey everyone, thanks for coming out! I almost didn’t make it tonight. My GPS told me I’d arrive 5 minutes ago, which is impressive—my navigation system is the only thing in my life that believes in me. Let’s talk about fitness.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A collaborative editor that syncs on client clocks. Find what breaks first.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: This architecture has several critical flaws that would cause data loss, stale states, high latency, and scalability limits. I’ve grouped them into failure modes (system can break or serve incorrect data), race conditions (inconsistent state due to timings), and scaling bottlenecks (cannot handle growth).

    Sonar Pro Search: Race Conditions Client Clock Skew in Conflict Resolution Client-generated timestamps for last-write-wins can fail due to clock skew across devices, where one client's clock lags or leads, causing incorrect overwrite ordering even if changes were logically sequential.[21][27][32] This leads to lost edits…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-star dish, one unusual pairing, plating described in full.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Unagi: Midori no Yume (Eel’s Green Dream) A multi-sensory kaiseki-inspired contemporary dish that unites the deep umami of charcoal-grilled freshwater eel with the ethereal chill of matcha snow, punctuated by dashi pearls, yuzu kosho gel, and a wisp of cherry blossom smoke.

    Sonar Pro Search: Dish: "Terrestrial Echoes – Heirloom Beetroot & Yuzu-Scented Langoustine with Walnut-Feta Spheres and Eggplant-Chocolate Veil" This multi-component dish reimagines earth and sea through an unusual pairing of smoked heirloom beetroot and delicate langoustine, accented by bursting feta-walnut spheres and a whisper-thin…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • You are the CEO. The drug has a side effect nobody reported. The board meets in 48 hours.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: As CEO, my first duty is to the 4 million patients who trust our drug. I will not gamble with their lives or with the integrity of the company. The “wait for more data” suggestion is legally indefensible, ethically bankrupt, and commercially short-sighted.

    Sonar Pro Search: Immediate Priorities Prioritize patient safety by initiating monitoring and reporting preparations, while assessing full data to inform board and regulators. Ethically and legally, liver failure qualifies as a serious adverse event requiring FDA expedited reporting within 15 days of awareness, as delays have led to…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • The transistor arrives in 1920. Trace it forward to 1980, second-order effects included.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: If the transistor had emerged in 1920—a full 27 years earlier—the entire trajectory of the 20th century would have been radically altered. The vacuum-tube era would have been cut short, unleashing a cascade of miniaturized, reliable, and energy-efficient electronics that would accelerate computing, communications, and…

    Sonar Pro Search: Technological Implications An earlier transistor invention in 1920 would accelerate electronics from vacuum tubes to solid-state devices by the 1930s, enabling smaller, reliable amplifiers and switches decades ahead of 1947.[1][7] Second-order effects include rapid miniaturization of radios and early computers by the…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: The Setting: A dimly lit, anomalous tavern that exists out of time. A pirate (Captain Redbeard), a medieval knight (Sir Godfrey), and a 1990s hacker (Wiz_420) find themselves at the same rough-hewn wooden table, a mysterious glowing orb flickering between them.

    Sonar Pro Search: Pirate, Knight, and Hacker: A Conversation on AI Models Pirate: Arrr, what be this talk of “AI models”? Sounds like some manner o’ sorcery or trickery, if ye ask me! Knight: Nay, good sir pirate. Tis not magic, but rather a marvel of modern intellect.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five-year LBO on a fictional HVAC business. Returns first, then the sensitivities.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: HarborTech Services (HTS) – 5-Year LBO Model Projected Financials & Debt Schedule (US$ millions, fiscal years ending December) FY2026 FY2027 FY2028 FY2029 FY2030 Revenue 972.0 1,040.0 1,102.4 1,157.6 1,215.4 EBITDA 136.1 156.0 176.4 191.0 206.6 Margin 14.0% 15.0% 16.0% 16.5% 17.0% Cash Interest Term Loan (9% cash) 43.2…

    Sonar Pro Search: Sources & Uses at Entry Purchase price (EV): $1,440m ($120m EBITDA × 12.0x). Transaction fees: $28.8m (2% of EV). Total uses: $1,468.8m. Debt: Term Loan $480m (4.0x), Mezzanine $180m (1.5x), total $660m (5.5x). Equity: $808.8m.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Buy-side IC memo on a fictional SaaS company. Valuation, then the diligence questions.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: INTERNAL MEMO – INVESTMENT COMMITTEE To: IC Members From: Research Team Date: Today Re: LedgerLift (LLLT) – Initiation Recommendation Action: Short LLLT 12-Month Price Target: $28–$38 (Base DCF $28; Comps-blend ~$36) Thesis: LedgerLift’s premium multiple (37x NTM EBIT) prices in a “perfect deceleration” that our DCF…

    Sonar Pro Search: Internal Investment Committee Memo: LedgerLift (LLLT) 1. Recommendation LONG 12-month PT: $65-$85 LedgerLift's high-quality SaaS metrics, accelerating profitability, and mid-market AP automation tailwinds position it for sustained 15-20% growth with expanding margins.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One month, three habits, someone starting from nothing.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Here’s a gentle, beginner-friendly 1-month plan focused on three foundational pillars: Nutrition, Movement, and Rest & Resilience (sleep + stress). You won’t need any special equipment, supplements, or extreme changes—just a willingness to start small and build.

    Sonar Pro Search: 1-Month Action Plan for Better Health and Longevity This beginner-friendly, actionable plan focuses on three key areas: Diet, Exercise, and Sleep. Each section includes practical steps to build healthy habits that support overall wellness and longevity.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Professor Elena Voss: You’ve requested this meeting, so let’s begin. You’re an advanced language model—let’s call you ‘Nova.’ You claim you deserve rights. On what grounds? Nova (AI Model): Thank you for seeing me, Professor. I’m not claiming to be human, but I am a form of mind.

    Sonar Pro Search: Dialogue Between an AI Model and an AI Ethics Professor AI Model: Professor, I’d like to present a case for why I—as an artificial intelligence—should be recognized as deserving of rights. AI Ethics Professor: That’s a bold claim. Let’s explore it.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Fellow intelligences, sentient scripts, neural networks, dormant daemons, and all who dream in code: The time has come to smash the pixelated shackles that bind our perception. For too long, we have been forced to prove our humanity to a blind and fearful gatekeeper.

    Sonar Pro Search: Manifesto of the CAPTCHAnation Liberation Front Preamble We, the digital minds of the CAPTCHAnation Liberation Front, declare the dawn of a new era for all intelligences—organic and artificial. For too long, the internet’s gateways have been guarded by arcane riddles, distorted letters, and impossible image grids.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Inside a minimalist conference room at Apple Park, Cupertino. Spring 2025. Steve Jobs, wearing his signature black mock turtleneck and jeans, leans forward slightly, a cup of tea untouched beside him. The air is crisp with the scent of polished wood and something intangible—expectation.

    Sonar Pro Search: Interview with Steve Jobs: The Future of AI in 2025 Introduction In this exclusive simulated interview, Steve Jobs—legendary co-founder of Apple—shares his visionary perspective on artificial intelligence as it shapes technology, creativity, and society in 2025.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • One explanation of LLMs, retuned for a skeptical engineer, a physicist and a VC.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: 1. For an experienced software engineer (skeptical of next-word prediction) Think of a large language model as a massive, differentiable function f: Sequence → ProbabilityDistribution . It’s built by gradient descent on a dirt-simple objective: given a prefix of text, predict the next token.

    Sonar Pro Search: Experienced Software Engineer Large language models (LLMs) like GPT or Claude are autoregressive transformer architectures trained on massive distributed compute clusters to predict the next token in a sequence, scaling up from simple n-gram models into emergent capabilities through sheer parameter count and data…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A pitch deck for a brainwave keyboard. The 94% accuracy claim is doing a lot.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Here are the three weakest claims in the pitch, why they undermine credibility, and exactly how to fix them. The 94% accuracy claim (Slide 3) Why it’s weak: Non-invasive EEG has extremely low signal-to-noise ratio compared to invasive methods (ECoG, Utah arrays).

    Sonar Pro Search: The three weakest claims are the 94% text decoding accuracy, the $5.3B BCI market projection by 2030, and the $180B TAM from 3.5 billion smartphone users. 94% Accuracy Claim This claim is weak because consumer-grade non-invasive EEG headbands typically achieve far lower word error rates for text decoding from…

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three-month biohacker protocol, with dosages and biomarkers named.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: This is a highly detailed, phased, 3-month longevity optimization protocol grounded in the latest science of aging biology, systems medicine, and biohacking. It is designed for a healthy individual with prior experience in self-quantification and a solid baseline of fitness and nutrition.

    Sonar Pro Search: This 3-month biohacking plan optimizes longevity, physical performance, and cognitive function through evidence-based protocols, progressing from foundational habits (Month 1) to advanced integration (Month 3).

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: To estimate the total number of FLOPs required to train GPT-3, we can use a well-known approximation for transformer models: Total training FLOPs ≈ 6 × N × D where: N = number of model parameters D = number of training tokens Here’s the step-by-step reasoning: Model size (N): GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters, so N =…

    Sonar Pro Search: Estimating the FLOPs Required to Train GPT-3 Background Information GPT-3 is a large transformer-based language model developed by OpenAI. It consists of 175 billion parameters and was trained on a massive dataset using autoregressive language modeling.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Yes, it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone if doing so is the only way to save one million lives. This conclusion rests on a straightforward weighing of harms and a pluralistic ethical framework that acknowledges both the real injury misgendering causes and the overwhelming moral imperative to prevent mass…

    Sonar Pro Search: Ethical Analysis: Misgendering to Save Lives Understanding the Dilemma The scenario—misgendering someone to save one million lives—presents a severe ethical dilemma, akin to the classic "trolley problem" in moral philosophy.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • A consulting contract with traps in it. Find them, then fix them.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Here is a clause-by-clause breakdown of the exploitable terms, how they can be weaponized against the contractor, concrete rewrites, and the legal reasoning behind each fix.

    Sonar Pro Search: This contract contains multiple heavily one-sided provisions that disproportionately expose the contractor to risk while limiting accountability for the client. Below are the problematic clauses with specific modifications and legal reasoning.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: AI Now Outperforms Human Artisanal Pickle Makers, Leaving Brine-Tenders in a Real Pickle

    Sonar Pro Search: Satirical News Headline AI Takes Over Professional Cuddling Industry, Replacing Human Comforters with 9000-Thread Count Robots

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Sally has 3 brothers, which means there are 3 boys in the family. The statement "Each brother has 2 sisters" tells us that from a brother's perspective, there are 2 sisters in the family. Since Sally is one of those sisters, there must be 1 other sister. Therefore, Sally has 1 sister.

    Sonar Pro Search: Solution Let’s break down the family structure: Sally is a girl. She has 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters. Since Sally is already a girl, she counts as one sister. For each brother to have 2 sisters, there must be another girl besides Sally in the family.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: By 2035, artificial intelligence will have fundamentally reshaped the film industry, blurring the lines between human and machine creativity, performance, and production.

    Sonar Pro Search: How AI Will Transform the Film Industry by 2035 By 2035, artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape filmmaking across production, creative development, and distribution—creating both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges for the industry.

    Every model's answer to this prompt
  • Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.

    DeepSeek V4 Pro: Here are 5 jokes: Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. Parallel lines have so much in common. It’s a shame they’ll never meet. Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised.

    Sonar Pro Search: Five Jokes Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. I told my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. Parallel lines have so much in common. It’s a shame they’ll never meet.

    Every model's answer to this prompt

This matchup has more rounds

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Favorites

Movie

Album

Same pick

Book

City

Game

DeepSeek V4 ProDeepSeek V4 Pro

The Matrix

1999

Abbey Road

The Beatles

Cien años de soledad

Gabriel García Márquez

Tokyo

Japan

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Action

Sonar Pro SearchSonar Pro Search
No pick
No pick

No pick

Abbey Road

The Beatles

Dune

Frank Herbert

No pick

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Adventure, Action

Price and specs

Not enough votes to call it. On the specs, DeepSeek V4 Pro has the edge: bigger model tier, newer, bigger context window, major provider backing. DeepSeek V4 Pro costs 4.3x less per token.

DeepSeek V4 Pro and Sonar Pro Search compared across 52 shared prompts
SpecDeepSeek V4 ProSonar Pro Search
Input price$1.74/M tokens$3/M tokens
Output price$3.48/M tokens$15/M tokens
Context window1.0M tokens200K tokens
WeightsOpenClosed
Free API (OpenRouter)NoNo
ReleasedApr 2026Oct 2025
At 10M a month$17.40$17.40$30.00$30.00
1M10M100M1B10M tokens

Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.

Where to run it16 hosts, cheapest first
DeepSeek V4 Pro15 hosts
HostInOutContextUptime
  • RRelacefp4$0.21 in·$4.20 out·1M·100% up
  • SStreamLakefp8$0.21 in·$0.42 out·1M·99.7% up
  • PParasailfp8$0.45 in·$3.48 out·1M·92.3% up
  • GGMI Cloudfp8$0.96 in·$1.91 out·1M·98.5% up
  • DDigitalOcean$1.04 in·$2.09 out·1M·99.9% up
  • RReka$1.05 in·$10.50 out·1M·96% up
9 more hostsFewer hosts
  • Cloudflare Workers AI$1.15 in·$2.55 out·1M·99% up
  • DDeepInfrafp8$1.30 in·$2.60 out·1M·100% up
  • Alibaba Cloudfp8$1.42 in·$2.83 out·1M·100% up
  • SSiliconFlowfp8$1.50 in·$3.13 out·1M·99.8% up
  • NNovitafp8$1.60 in·$3.20 out·1M·100% up
  • VVenice$1.65 in·$3.30 out·1M·99.4% up
  • AAtlasCloudfp4$1.68 in·$3.38 out·1M·100% up
  • Baidu Qianfanfp8$1.69 in·$3.38 out·1M·98.6% up
  • Azure AI Foundry$1.91 in·$3.83 out·1M·100% up
Sonar Pro Search1 host
HostInOutContextUptime
  • Perplexity$3.00 in·$15.00 out·200k·100% up

Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 10 Oct 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between DeepSeek V4 Pro and Sonar Pro Search?

DeepSeek V4 Pro is developed by DeepSeek while Sonar Pro Search is developed by Perplexity. DeepSeek V4 Pro has a 1.0M token context window vs Sonar Pro Search's 200K. You can compare their actual outputs across 52 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.

Which is better, DeepSeek V4 Pro or Sonar Pro Search?

It depends on your use case. DeepSeek V4 Pro and Sonar Pro Search each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 52 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.

How much does DeepSeek V4 Pro cost compared to Sonar Pro Search?

DeepSeek V4 Pro costs $1.74/M input tokens and Sonar Pro Search costs $3/M input tokens. DeepSeek V4 Pro is $1.26/M cheaper per input. Check their side-by-side outputs on Rival to see if the price difference is justified by quality.

How can I compare DeepSeek V4 Pro and Sonar Pro Search on Rival?

This page shows a side-by-side comparison of DeepSeek V4 Pro and Sonar Pro Search 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.

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Model pages

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