Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs EXAONE 4.5 33B

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and EXAONE 4.5 33B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61.5 (C) and 61 (C). EXAONE 4.5 33B leads on reach and agent interface. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash C

Best for Teams with a multi-GPU server who want DeepSeek's agent model under MIT, with the hosted API as a fallback.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

510.3 GB of files and no smaller build anywhere, so it won't fit the 107.4 GB reference machine

EXAONE 4.5 33B C

Best for Researchers and students working on documents, Korean or multimodal agents who don't need commercial rights

Ahead on

  • Reach, 65 against 60
  • Agent interface, 85 against 75

Watch for

Research and education only. No commercial use of the model or its output

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Agent interface EXAONE 4.5 33B +10

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 75

There's no Jinja template in the 17 October repository, only code to run, so the template line gets 10. DeepSeek documents the DSML tool format both ways and ships its own parser in encoding.py and deepseek-recipe, but names no parser in a runtime (10, read as for DeepSeek-V3.2 and V4-Flash-0731), and one block can carry several calls (20). deepseek-recipe documents JSON Schema output via response_format (15). Thinking turns off in chat mode and takes an effort budget from 1 to 100, with reasoning returned in think tags (10). The 1M context was trained in (10).

EXAONE 4.5 33B 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (5,930 characters). Tool-calling format 25, the card's vLLM command names the parser, hermes with auto tool choice, and its agentic example calls tools from MCP servers through the OpenAI-compatible API, so declaration and return follow that API. Trained tool calling 20, the card reports agentic tool use among its language results and shows an agent run with several tool servers, and the template renders every call in a turn. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking is on by default and the card says to set it false for the non-reasoning mode, with an example of each. Context 10, 262,144 tokens per the card's configuration table and config.json, and the card's serve commands run at that length. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Reach EXAONE 4.5 33B +5

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 60

Memory scores nothing, because the only build is DeepSeek's own at 510.3 GB, about 612 GB with the fifth added, and nobody's runtime library holds a smaller one at 4-bit or better. Four runtimes run it in a released version (5 each), vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23, which maps the V4.1 architecture name onto its V4 model, llama.cpp from b11870 (25 October 2026), which added the deepseek41 architecture and its converter, and Ollama 0.40.14, which builds llama.cpp b11963. Transformers 5.22.1 and LM Studio don't (0 each). The release itself is one quantised build, FP8 with FP4 experts (10). MIT with nothing added earns the full terms line (15), the repositories aren't gated (10), and Hugging Face maps three live inference providers for the update (5). 0 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 60.

EXAONE 4.5 33B 65

Memory 20, the smallest build at 4 bits is LG's IQ4_XS GGUF, 18.03 GB with the 2.57 GB projector, and 20.60 GB × 1.2 = 24.7 GB, within 32 GB. Without the projector, for text only, it would fit 24 GB. Runtimes 15, Released vLLM 0.33.0 has exaone4_5.py, Transformers 5.22.2 has the exaone4_5 model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture, with LG's own GGUF. Three at 5 each. Builds 15, LG publishes GGUF at five quantised precisions, an AWQ build and an FP8 build. Terms 5, Research and educational use only. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for all four repositories on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and no click-through, though the licence says downloading is acceptance. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API that serves it. 20 + 15 + 15 + 5 + 10 + 0 = 65.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeepSeek V4.1 FlashEXAONE 4.5 33BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%256065EXAONE 4.5 33B +5
Risk20%205050even
Agent interface10%107585EXAONE 4.5 33B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%104850EXAONE 4.5 33B +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61.5/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepSeek V4.1 FlashEXAONE 4.5 33B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorDeepSeekLG AI Research
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITEXAONE AI Model License Agreement 1.2 - NC (research and education only)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-172026-07-06
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

A large multimodal agent model with a 1M-token context, documented tool calls, JSON Schema output and a reasoning budget, under MIT. It needs about 612 GB of memory across several GPUs and runs in vLLM, SGLang and llama.cpp. The main risks are prompts built from DeepSeek's code instead of a template, no published safety results and no DeepSeek replies.

EXAONE 4.5 33B

A well-documented vision-language model with a full set of builds, tool calling, switchable reasoning, a 256K context and a stated knowledge cut-off. The licence decides whether you can use it: research and education only, output included, and LG can change the terms. Nothing answered on the repository and no safety results.

Before you call either

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash

  1. DeepSeek's reference run is its inference folder, convert.py with --model-parallel 8 --expert-dtype fp4, then torchrun --nproc-per-node 8 generate.py --ckpt-path "$SAVE_PATH" --config config.json --interactive
  2. In vLLM 0.32.0 the parsers are named deepseek_v41 for both --tool-call-parser and --reasoning-parser. That's vLLM's naming, DeepSeek doesn't document a vLLM command
  3. In llama.cpp, convert with convert_hf_to_gguf.py from b11870 or later, which added the deepseek41 architecture on 25 October 2026; no GGUF is published by DeepSeek
  4. Build prompts with encoding.py or pip install deepseek-recipe, not the September repository's chat_template.jinja, which an open pull request says trails the 16 October encoding
  5. Tool calls come back in a DSML calls block with a space before calls, invoke and parameter, unlike V4
  6. Set reasoning_effort to 1 to 100, or low, high or max (50, 75, 100), in thinking mode only. Default is 75
  7. Sample at temperature 1.0 and top_p 1.0 and allow 256K or more output tokens, as the card recommends
  8. Without the hardware, call DeepSeek's API as deepseek-flash, which serves this exact update

EXAONE 4.5 33B

  1. Don't use it, or anything it writes, commercially. The licence covers the output too
  2. Serve it with vLLM and --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser hermes
  3. Set enable_thinking false for a direct answer. Thinking is on by default
  4. Use temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and presence_penalty 1.5 in general, and temperature 0.6 with top_k 20 for documents and Korean
  5. For llama.cpp, load a projector file from LG's GGUF repository with the weights for image input
  6. Its knowledge stops at December 2024

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or EXAONE 4.5 33B?

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and EXAONE 4.5 33B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61.5 (C) and 61 (C). EXAONE 4.5 33B leads on reach and agent interface.

Other comparisons with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash or EXAONE 4.5 33B

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