DeepSeekv4 Pro is roughly Opus 4.5 - Opus 4.6 in my estimation. That's about 8 months difference, not 2.5 years.

It's definitely not as good. But it's also definitely good enough.

Curious- in what tasks? I find Opus 4.5/4.6 too expensive and have tried to migrate to DeepSeek for C++ work, but found it couldn't cut it.

What's your DSv4 setup? What harness? It sounds like I should give it another try!

works really well with pi for small to medium sized coding tasks for me - C++ is an interesting case since it's probably more challenging just due to the complexity of the syntax. But it works great with Groovy which is another slightly off-mainstream language (these days).

I use DSv4 through opencode. I use it from deepseek directly, not through a third-party platform.

I mostly do C# and some frontend. I was starting to feel really depressed and unengaged at work because I was starting to use AI far too much like a magic slot machine. I'm now making a conscious effort to go back to using it as a tool used a bit more deliberately.

I'm not even using the pro model. The flash version is fast so I can keep it interactive rather than context switching to reddit while the model is working, and it turns out using my brain means I don't really need the model to be that smart.

I spent about $1.5 this week.