DeepSeek Reasoner (R1) vs Yi-Lightning

Performance benchmarks + pricing comparison — updated April 2026

DeepSeek Reasoner (R1)

DeepSeek

DeepSeek's reasoning model. Comparable to OpenAI's o1 but at much lower cost.

Input$0.550/M
Output$2.19/M
Context128K tokens
Best ForComplex reasoning, math, advanced coding
Benchmark72/100

Yi-Lightning

01.ai

01.ai's cost-effective model. Competitive Chinese-English bilingual model at very low prices.

Input$0.150/M
Output$0.600/M
Context16K tokens
Best ForChinese-English translation, cost-sensitive applications

Cost Comparison by Scenario

Estimated cost per project with 30% cache hit rate. Actual costs may vary based on usage patterns.

ScenarioDeepSeek Reasoner (R1)Yi-LightningSavings
Small Script (1K lines) $0.08 $0.02 Yi-Lightning saves $0.06 (73%)
Medium Feature (10K lines) $0.63 $0.17 Yi-Lightning saves $0.46 (73%)
Large Project (50K lines) $3.15 $0.86 Yi-Lightning saves $2.29 (73%)
Code Review (5K lines) $0.15 $0.04 Yi-Lightning saves $0.11 (73%)

Verdict

Yi-Lightning wins on both price and performance — $0.150/M input with a benchmark score of N/A/100.

For most developers, this is the clear choice between these two models.

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