DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) vs Kimi K3
Practical read: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) costs under a tenth as much. Kimi K3 starts answering sooner. One API key runs both.
No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.
Side by side:
| Attribute | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) | Kimi K3 |
|---|---|---|
| Price, 1M in + out | $0.79 DeepSeek, cheapest route | $11.97 Chutes, cheapest route |
| Best for | Low cost | Speed |
| Input / output, 1M | $0.16 / $0.63 | $1.95 / $10.02 |
| Cached input | $0.01/1M | $0.1688/1M to $1.046349/1M |
| Context window | 1.05M 1,048,576 tokens | 1.05M 1,048,576 tokens |
| First token, p50 | 1.5 s via DeepSeek | 0.71 s via Makora |
| Throughput | Measuring | 246 tok/s via Baseten |
| AI IQ | Unrated | IQ 127 #22 on AI IQ |
| Provider routes | 1 | 27 with failover |
| Privacy | Varies by provider | Confidential E2EE and zero retention route |
| Recent route uptime range | 100.00% | 50.00% to 100.00% |
| Publisher | DeepSeek | Kimi |
| Modes | chat | chat |
| More detail |
Price adds one million input and one million output tokens on the cheapest route. Prices and speed change: see the monthly reports and run a small eval before you choose a default.
Test both with your agent
Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent.
Compare DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) and Kimi K3 in this project through TrustedRouter.
1. Read https://trustedrouter.com/docs/llms.txt
2. Point the OpenAI-compatible client at
https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1 and read the key from
TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY.
3. Run our eval prompts on deepseek/deepseek-flash, then on moonshotai/kimi-k3.
4. Show me cost, latency and quality side by side before changing the default.
import os
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
base_url="https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1",
api_key=os.environ["TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY"],
)
for model in ("deepseek/deepseek-flash", "moonshotai/kimi-k3"):
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model=model,
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}],
)
print(model, response.choices[0].message.content)
for model in deepseek/deepseek-flash moonshotai/kimi-k3; do
curl https://api.trustedrouter.com/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $TRUSTEDROUTER_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"model\": \"$model\", \"messages\": [{\"role\": \"user\", \"content\": \"What is the capital of France?\"}]}"
done
Questions
Which should I use, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3?
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) has the lower published input-plus-output rate. MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 has more Credits provider routes and the lower measured p50 time to first token. Their context windows are the same size.
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 cheaper?
The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $0.79125/1M for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) and $11.97425/1M for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.
Is DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) or MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 faster?
Current measured p50 time to first token is 1542 ms for DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) and 711 ms for MoonshotAI: Kimi K3. These are routed probe measurements, not vendor-advertised speeds, and update as new samples arrive.
Can I test DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) and MoonshotAI: Kimi K3 with the same API?
Yes. Use the same OpenAI-compatible TrustedRouter base URL and API key, then change only the model id between deepseek/deepseek-flash and moonshotai/kimi-k3. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.
More comparisons
All comparisonsTry DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (rolling) and Kimi K3 with one key.
TrustedRouter is useful when you know the model you want, but still need provider rollover, budget limits, usage records, and a prompt path you can verify.
No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.