DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp vs LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B

A side-by-side comparison of DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp ($0.75 / 1M tokens) and LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B ($1.22 / 1M tokens) using current USD prices and capabilities from the api14 catalog. Both run through the same OpenAI-compatible API.

Specifications

	DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp	LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B
Provider	DeepSeek	LiquidAI
Input	$0.75 / 1M tokens	$1.22 / 1M tokens
Output	$2.26 / 1M tokens	$1.75 / 1M tokens
Cache read	$0.02 / 1M tokens	$0.14 / 1M tokens
Context window	1,048,576	128,000
Max output	262,144	8,192
Input	text, image	text
Output	text	text
Tool calling
Structured output
Reasoning control
Added	Aug 21, 2026	Aug 11, 2026

Key differences

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp is 38% cheaper on input tokens.
LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B is 23% cheaper on output tokens.
DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp reads 8.2× more context (1,048,576 tokens).
A request with 1,000 input and 500 output tokens costs $0.00189 with DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp and $0.00210 with LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B.

Switch with one string

Both models use the same endpoint and request shape. Change the model value from "deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash-vision-exp" to "liquid/lfm-2.5-2.6b" and prompts, streaming and tools keep working.

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp details & playground →LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B details & playground →

import OpenAI from "openai";

const client = new OpenAI({
  baseURL: "https://api14.com/api/v1",
  apiKey: process.env.API14_API_KEY,
});

const result = await client.chat.completions.create({
  "model": "liquid/lfm-2.5-2.6b",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "user",
      "content": "Explain vector databases in two sentences."
    }
  ]
});
console.log(result.choices[0].message.content);

DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision Exp vs LiquidAI: LFM2.5-2.6B

Specifications

Key differences

Switch with one string

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