Simon Willison Reviews DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731: High Performance at Low Cost

Simon Willison on DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

I tested the new DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 model, which boasts 304 billion parameters and impressive agentic capabilities. Despite its massive size, it offers exceptional value with pricing significantly lower than competitors like MiniMax M3. While default settings produced poor image generation, increasing the reasoning effort yielded excellent results, positioning this model as a top contender for cost-effective intelligence.