Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Claude Sonnet 5.5 took 3 min 49 s and $0.34 at list price, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash took 9 min 16 s and $0.063 at list price. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash took 2.4× as long, and Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost 5.4× as much.
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Anthropic · $10.00/M out · 9 HN pts
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
DeepSeek · $0.50/M out · 1,482 HN pts
Only Claude Sonnet 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 workshop in Rotterdam, trying to keep old synthesizers alive. We repair, restore and recalibrate the instruments that shaped electronic music: Moogs and Oberheims, Rolands and Sequential Circuits, the odd temperamental Soviet oddity that someone found in an attic.
Most of what lands on our benches has been silent for years. A crackling pot, a drifting oscillator, a power supply that gave up in 1994. Some come from working musicians who need their instrument back before the next tour. Others come from people who inherited a dusty box from a parent and want to hear what it sounds like.
We work slowly and by hand. We trace faults with a scope and a schematic, source or rebuild parts when originals are gone, and change as little as we can. Every synth leaves with a note describing exactly what we did, so the next person to open it knows where we have been.
Come by, bring your synth, and stay for coffee.
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 Sonnet 5.5 | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | DeepSeek |
| Made in | US | China |
| Released | 28 Sep 2026 | 10 Sep 2026 |
| Price in, per M tokens | $2.00 | $0.045 |
| Price out, per M tokens | $10.00 | $0.50 |
| Context | 1,000,000 tokens | 1,048,576 tokens |
| Weights | closed | open |
| Hacker News points | 9 | 1,482 |
| Time for the six prompts | 3 min 49 s | 9 min 16 s |
| List price of the six prompts | $0.34 | $0.063 |
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was cheaper: $0.28 less at list price, and less on each of the 6 prompts. Claude Sonnet 5.5 was faster: 5 min 28 s less in total, and faster on 5 of the 6 prompts.
In the recording, both Breakout games play.
Rebuild this screen experiment: Claude Sonnet 5.5's rebuild matched the screenshot at 94%; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was not in it. Tea Garden experiment: Claude Sonnet 5.5's game passed 5 of 5 checks; DeepSeek V4.1 Flash was not in it.





