deepseek-v3 vs claude sonnet for routine coding tasks — my real usage numbers

Ran both models on the same set of 50 coding tasks over a week. figured I'd share since everyone always asks which model to use for what. task types: file reads, simple refactors, grep-and-replace, test generation, docstring writing, basic debugging results: - quality: deepseek-v3 matched sonnet on about 80% of tasks. the 20% where sonnet was clearly better were all multi-file architecture decisions and complex refactors - speed: deepseek was faster on average (less queue time) - cost: roughly 1/8th of sonnet per token my takeaway: for routine de tasks, deepseek-v3 is genuinely good enough.