Model comparison

DeepSeek-R1 vs Granite 4.0 Micro

DeepSeek-R1 is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Granite 4.0 Micro costs 22× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek-R1's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 7 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek-R1

DeepSeek

42.3

Rank #115 Confirmed

Granite 4.0 Micro IBM

29.0

Rank #318 Confirmed

Summary

They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-R1 scores higher in 4 categories and Granite 4.0 Micro in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where DeepSeek-R1 leads 44.5 to 9.9.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 66.4% for DeepSeek-R1 and 2.8% for Granite 4.0 Micro.
Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper at $0.017 / $0.11 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2.15 for DeepSeek-R1.
DeepSeek-R1 accepts more context: 164K tokens versus 131K.
Granite 4.0 Micro has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

DeepSeek-R1 and Granite 4.0 Micro specifications
	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
Provider	DeepSeek	IBM
Noometry Index	42.3	29.0
Released	2025-01-20	2025-10-02
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	164K	131K
Max output	64K	118K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.50	$0.017
Output $ / M tokens	$2.15	$0.11
Results tracked	52	8

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 46.3 (#68), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
Aider Polyglot	71.4%	—
SciCode	35.7%	—
WeirdML	41.6%	—
LiveBench Coding	66.7%	—
LMArena Coding	1427	—
ALE-Bench	804.12	—
AlgoTune	1.7	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 30.7 (#75), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
DeepResearch Bench	35.1%	—
BALROG	34.9%	—
METR Time Horizons	53.8%	—

Reasoning Too close to call

DeepSeek-R1: 18.6 (#278), Granite 4.0 Micro: 19.2 (#265)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
ARC-AGI-2	1.3%	—
SimpleBench	40.8%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	69.4%	—
ARC-AGI-1	21.2%	—
CritPt	1.1%	—
Chess Puzzles	—	0%
LiveBench Reasoning	83.2%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1416	—
LiveBench Data Analysis	69.8%	—
Epoch Capabilities Index	141.29	—
ForecastBench	60	—
LiveBench	71.6%	—

Math DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 43.8 (#79), Granite 4.0 Micro: 12.0 (#307)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	66.4%	2.8%
Omni-MATH	42.4%	20.9%
LiveBench Math	80.7%	—
LMArena Math	1400	—
MATH Level 5	96.6%	—

Knowledge DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 44.5 (#87), Granite 4.0 Micro: 9.9 (#304)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
GPQA Diamond	76.3%	28.3%
MMLU-Pro	79.3%	39.5%
GPQA (HELM)	66.6%	30.7%
Confabulations	12.7%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	11.3%	—
LMArena Expert	1394	—

Multilingual Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 52.4 (#85), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
LMArena Non-English	1412	—
LMArena Chinese	1442	—
LMArena French	1417	—
LMArena German	1404	—
LMArena Japanese	1391	—
LMArena Korean	1360	—
LMArena Russian	1423	—
LMArena Spanish	1411	—

Instruction Following DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 72.0 (#143), Granite 4.0 Micro: 69.9 (#169)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
IFEval	78.4%	84.9%
LiveBench Instruction Following	80.5%	—
LMArena Instruction Following	1382	—

Long Context Not comparable

DeepSeek-R1: 45.4 (#36), Granite 4.0 Micro: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
Fiction.LiveBench	75%	—
LMArena Longer Query	1391	—

Writing & Preference DeepSeek-R1 leads

DeepSeek-R1: 61.4 (#88), Granite 4.0 Micro: 46.7 (#216)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek-R1	Granite 4.0 Micro
WildBench	82.8%	67%
LMArena Text	1428	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1405	—
Short-Story Creative Writing	83%	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1500	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1405	—
LiveBench Language	48.5%	—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek-R1 better than Granite 4.0 Micro?

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1 or Granite 4.0 Micro?

Granite 4.0 Micro is cheaper. It lists at $0.017 per million input tokens and $0.11 per million output tokens; DeepSeek-R1 lists at $0.50 and $2.15.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-R1 does, with 164K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-R1 and Granite 4.0 Micro share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-R1 has 52 scored results on Noometry and Granite 4.0 Micro has 8.