Claude Opus 5.5 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Claude Opus 5.5 took 11 min 46 s and $1.57 at list price, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash took 9 min 16 s and $0.063 at list price. Claude Opus 5.5 took 1.3× as long and cost 25× as much.
Claude Opus 5.5
Anthropic · $20.00/M out · 2,737 HN pts
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
DeepSeek · $0.50/M out · 1,482 HN pts
Only Claude Opus 5.5 has CLI runs here (Claude Code).
Pelican
Generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle
Watch
Draw a mechanical wristwatch that shows the current local time, with a sweeping seconds hand and a date window. Make it look expensive.
Landing
Build the landing page for Lumen Cycles, a Copenhagen workshop that builds custom cargo bikes to order. Make it look like a real brand you would trust with 4,000 euros.
Breakout
Make a Breakout game I can play right now with the keyboard or the mouse. Give it several levels, a score and some juice.
Logo
Design a logo for Night Heron, an independent bookshop that only opens after dark.
About
Write the opening of the About us page for Patchbay, a three-person studio in Rotterdam that repairs vintage synthesizers. About 150 words.
Patchbay is three people in a narrow workshop near the Maas in Rotterdam. Every day we open up instruments that were built before most of their current owners were born. Some arrive in flight cases and some come wrapped in old bath towels. Most have a story: a Juno that went quiet halfway through a gig, a Minimoog left in someone's attic for thirty years, or a modular system that a previous technician gave up on.
We started Patchbay because we kept seeing good synthesizers sent off as "unrepairable" when all they needed was patience, a schematic and a steady hand. We swap out dried capacitors, hunt for intermittent faults, recalibrate oscillators until they track properly again, and source or rebuild parts that stopped being made decades ago.
We don't try to make old machines sound new. Our job is to make them sound like themselves again, and to make sure they keep working for the next person who plays them.
Patchbay is a three-person studio in Rotterdam dedicated to the care, repair, and resurrection of vintage synthesizers. We started in a small workshop near the Maas, surrounded by oscillators, patch cables, and service manuals, because these instruments deserve more than dusty shelves and hasty fixes. Between us, we have decades of experience in electronics, sound design, and restoration, but we approach every machine with the same curiosity: listen first, trace the signal, understand the history, then bring it back to life. Whether it's a crackly filter, a dead voice card, a drifting oscillator, or a power supply that needs rebuilding, we work carefully, honestly, and with respect for original character. We also advise on maintenance, calibrate tuning and envelopes, and source hard-to-find parts when possible. At Patchbay, repair isn't just about making sound again. It's about keeping these instruments making music for decades to come.
Specs and numbers
| Claude Opus 5.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 22 Sep 2026 | 10 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $4.00 | $0.045 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $20.00 | $0.50 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 2,737 | 1,482 |
| Time for the six prompts | 11 min 46 s | 9 min 16 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $1.57 | $0.063 |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was cheaper: $1.50 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was faster: 2 min 30 s less in total, and faster on 3 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's rebuild matched the screenshot at 89%; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Opus 5.5's game passed 5 of 5 checks; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was not in it.





