Two Chinese AI labs go head-to-head. Qwen 2.5's balanced capabilities vs DeepSeek R1's reasoning specialization — which open model wins?
Coding
🏆 Qwen 2.5 72BQwen 2.5 72B scores higher on HumanEval and practical coding benchmarks. Its code generation is more consistent.
Reasoning
🏆 DeepSeek R1 70BDeepSeek R1's chain-of-thought training gives it a clear edge on complex reasoning and math problems.
Multilingual
🏆 Qwen 2.5 72BQwen 2.5 supports 29+ languages vs DeepSeek R1's focus on English and Chinese.
License
🤝 TieBoth use permissive licenses — Qwen 2.5 is Apache 2.0, DeepSeek R1 is MIT.
Size Options
🤝 TieBoth offer multiple sizes. Qwen: 7B/14B/72B. DeepSeek R1: 7B/14B/32B/70B.
General Tasks
🏆 Qwen 2.5 72BQwen 2.5 is more balanced across diverse tasks including translation, summarization, and creative writing.
🎯 Which Should You Choose?
Qwen 2.5 is the better all-rounder — excellent at coding, multilingual, and general tasks. DeepSeek R1 is the specialist — unbeatable at complex reasoning and math. For a single model to handle everything, choose Qwen 2.5. For dedicated reasoning/math work, choose DeepSeek R1.