Pick DeepSeek V4 for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost or open mit-licensed weights you can self-host. Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). On a tight budget at scale, DeepSeek V4 is the value pick.
DeepSeek V4 (DeepSeek) and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. DeepSeek V4 is china's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Their biggest split is price, and the breakdown below shows exactly how that plays out for your workload.
Key differences
Price: nearly identical — $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens vs $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens. Cost will not be the deciding factor here.
Context window: both advertise 1M (~1,500 pages). Tie on paper — test on your own long inputs, since usable recall varies by model.
Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 4 months (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Specifications
Spec
DeepSeek V4
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Provider
DeepSeek (China)
Tencent (China)
Released
April 24, 2026
August 28, 2026
Context window
1M (~1,500 pages)
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text, code
text
SWE-Bench Verified
80.6%
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
Near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost: DeepSeek V4 — At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.
Open MIT-licensed weights you can self-host: DeepSeek V4 — China's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost — and it runs cheaper at $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens.
No long-context surcharge: DeepSeek V4 — DeepSeek V4 lists no long-context surcharge among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
GPQA Diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it is the newer of the two.
Terminal-Bench (85.4): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview lists terminal-Bench (85.4) among its strengths; DeepSeek V4 does not.
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview lists sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9) among its strengths; DeepSeek V4 does not.
Lowest cost at scale: DeepSeek V4 — At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume: DeepSeek V4 — At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Anyone whose priority is near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost: DeepSeek V4 — It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — That is its strongest area.
DeepSeek V4: where it fits
China's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost. Released April 24, 2026 by DeepSeek, it is built for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost, open MIT-licensed weights you can self-host, no long-context surcharge, and highest LiveCodeBench result.
Its trade-offs are real: this generic 'V4' entry mirrors DeepSeek V4-Pro's specs - see DeepSeek V4-Pro and DeepSeek V4-Flash for DeepSeek's actual named product tiers, trails the very best on hardest agentic coding, and text/code focused, less multimodal. At $0.66 in / $1.98 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
DeepSeek V4 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview overlap enough that the right pick depends on your specific job. DeepSeek V4 costs less per token; and each leads in its own area — DeepSeek V4 for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3). Rather than crowning one, run the same hard task through both once and let the results decide.
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, DeepSeek V4 leans toward near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost while Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?
DeepSeek V4 is cheaper — $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens vs $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens, roughly 1.3× apart on input.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both advertise 1M (~1,500 pages). Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.
Can I use both DeepSeek V4 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you DeepSeek V4, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 4 months after DeepSeek V4.
DeepSeek V4 vs Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
DeepSeek · China | Tencent · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick DeepSeek V4 for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost or open mit-licensed weights you can self-host. Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). On a tight budget at scale, DeepSeek V4 is the value pick.
DeepSeek V4 (DeepSeek) and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. DeepSeek V4 is china's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Their biggest split is price, and the breakdown below shows exactly how that plays out for your workload.
Key differences at a glance
▸Price: nearly identical — $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens vs $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens. Cost will not be the deciding factor here.
▸Context window: both advertise 1M (~1,500 pages). Tie on paper — test on your own long inputs, since usable recall varies by model.
▸Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 4 months (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Side-by-side specs
Spec
DeepSeek V4
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Provider
DeepSeek (China)
Tencent (China)
Released
April 24, 2026
August 28, 2026
Context window
1M (~1,500 pages)
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text, code
text
SWE-Bench Verified
80.6%
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
Near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost
DeepSeek V4
At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.
Open MIT-licensed weights you can self-host
DeepSeek V4
China's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost — and it runs cheaper at $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens.
No long-context surcharge
DeepSeek V4
DeepSeek V4 lists no long-context surcharge among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
GPQA Diamond (92.3)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it is the newer of the two.
Terminal-Bench (85.4)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview lists terminal-Bench (85.4) among its strengths; DeepSeek V4 does not.
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview lists sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9) among its strengths; DeepSeek V4 does not.
Lowest cost at scale
DeepSeek V4
At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ DeepSeek V4
At $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Anyone whose priority is near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost
→ DeepSeek V4
It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3)
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
That is its strongest area.
DeepSeek V4: where it fits
China's open-weight price earthquake — near-frontier capability at roughly a twelfth of GPT-5.5's cost. Released April 24, 2026 by DeepSeek, it is built for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost, open MIT-licensed weights you can self-host, no long-context surcharge, and highest LiveCodeBench result.
Its trade-offs are real: this generic 'V4' entry mirrors DeepSeek V4-Pro's specs - see DeepSeek V4-Pro and DeepSeek V4-Flash for DeepSeek's actual named product tiers, trails the very best on hardest agentic coding, and text/code focused, less multimodal. At $0.66 in / $1.98 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
DeepSeek V4 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview overlap enough that the right pick depends on your specific job. DeepSeek V4 costs less per token; and each leads in its own area — DeepSeek V4 for near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3). Rather than crowning one, run the same hard task through both once and let the results decide.
Want both DeepSeek V4 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.
Is DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, DeepSeek V4 leans toward near-frontier coding at ~1/12 the cost while Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?
DeepSeek V4 is cheaper — $0.66/$1.98 per 1M tokens vs $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens, roughly 1.3× apart on input.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both advertise 1M (~1,500 pages). Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.
Can I use both DeepSeek V4 and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you DeepSeek V4, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, DeepSeek V4 or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 4 months after DeepSeek V4.
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.