DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 vs Gemma 3 4B

Practical read: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 reads eight times more context. Gemma 3 4B costs less. One API key runs both.

No card required. Start with 1 million free tokens.

Side by side:

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 compared with Google: Gemma 3 4B
Attribute	DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 `deepseek/deepseek-v4.1-flash-1017`	Gemma 3 4B `google/gemma-3-4b-it`
Price, 1M in + out	$0.16 Engy, cheapest route	$0.13 Amazon Bedrock, cheapest route
Best for	Long documents	Low cost
Input / output, 1M	$0.032 / $0.13	$0.042 / $0.084
Cached input	$0.01/1M to $0.131875/1M	Not published
Context window	1.05M 1,048,576 tokens	131K 131,072 tokens
First token, p50	0.52 s via Sail Research	Measuring
AI IQ	IQ 128 #19 on AI IQ	Unrated
Provider routes	19 with failover	2 with failover
Privacy	Confidential E2EE and zero retention route	Varies by provider
Recent route uptime range	99.30% to 100.00%	100.00%
Publisher	DeepSeek	Google AI Studio
Modes	chat	chat
More detail	Overview Pricing Providers	Overview Pricing Providers

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 1017 and Gemma 3 4B 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-v4.1-flash-1017, then on google/gemma-3-4b-it.
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-v4.1-flash-1017", "google/gemma-3-4b-it"):
    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-v4.1-flash-1017 google/gemma-3-4b-it; 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

Your agent will need an API key.

Questions

Which should I use, DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Google: Gemma 3 4B?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 has more Credits provider routes and the larger context window. Google: Gemma 3 4B has the lower published input-plus-output rate. There is not enough recent probe data to compare speed.

Is DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Google: Gemma 3 4B cheaper?

The current cheapest TrustedRouter route is $0.15825/1M for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 and $0.1266/1M for Google: Gemma 3 4B. The comparison uses current catalog prices and updates as provider pricing changes.

Is DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 or Google: Gemma 3 4B faster?

Current measured p50 time to first token is 521 ms for DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 and not enough data for Google: Gemma 3 4B. These are routed probe measurements, not vendor-advertised speeds, and update as new samples arrive.

Can I test DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 and Google: Gemma 3 4B 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-v4.1-flash-1017 and google/gemma-3-4b-it. This makes side-by-side evals possible without maintaining two provider integrations.

More comparisons

All comparisons

Try DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 and Gemma 3 4B 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.