A Comparative Analysis of Leading AI Language Models for Programming in 2025

Introduction

The development of AI language models has established new benchmarks, particularly in the realm of coding and programming. Among the frontrunners are DeepSeek-V3, GPT-4o, and Llama 3.3 70B, each bringing unique strengths to the table. This article will conduct a detailed comparison of these AI language models, focusing on their architectures, parameters, coding capabilities, and practical applications.

Model Architectures and Design

DeepSeek-V3 is an open – source model that shines in large language model benchmarks, thanks to its efficient Mixture – of – Experts (MoE) architecture. It has 671 billion parameters, with 37 billion activated per token, trained on 14.8 trillion tokens. It also integrates reasoning abilities from DeepSeek-R1 Lite and offers a 128K context window, handling diverse input types such as text, structured data, and multimodal inputs.

GPT-4o, developed by OpenAI, features state – of – the – art architectural enhancements. Trained on a vast dataset of input tokens, it supports multimodal inputs and has enhanced reasoning abilities. With a 128K token context window, it can generate up to 16,384 tokens per request and processes around 77.4 tokens per second.

Llama 3.3 70B is an open – source, pre – trained, instruction – tuned generative model by Meta. It has 70 billion parameters and is optimized for efficiency and scalability. Trained on over 15 trillion tokens, it uses an optimized transformer architecture and supports a wide context window with advanced reasoning capabilities for text – based and structured data inputs.

Model Evaluation

In terms of pricing, GPT-4o is about 30 times more expensive than DeepSeek-V3 for input and output tokens, while Llama 3.3 70B Instruct is roughly 1.5 times more expensive than DeepSeek-V3.

Looking at benchmark results, DeepSeek-V3 performs well in benchmarks like MMLU and HumanEval, but lags in MATH. GPT-4o excels in HumanEval and MMLU but struggles in MATH and GPQA. Llama 3.3 70B shows strength in MATH and IFEval, but is less impressive in HumanEval and GPQA compared to the other two.

Coding Capabilities

Task 1: Finding the Factorial of a Large Number

When prompted to write Python code for finding the factorial of a large number, GPT-4o provided the most complete response, with good efficiency, readability, and error – handling, along with detailed comments. Llama 3.3 70B’s response was functional but lacked proper error – handling and documentation, and was less efficient in structure. DeepSeek-V3’s response was efficient and well – structured but lacked robust error – handling and sufficient documentation.

Task 2: Checking if a String is a Palindrome

For the task of checking if a string can be a palindrome after deleting at most one character, GPT-4o again had the most complete and well – documented response. Llama 3.3 70B provided a functional solution but with less clear variable naming and documentation. DeepSeek-V3 had a balanced approach in terms of efficiency and simplicity but was lacking in documentation.

Conclusion

Overall, GPT-4o outperforms Llama 3.3 70B and DeepSeek-V3 in efficiency, clarity, error management, and documentation, making it the top choice for practical and educational purposes. However, both Llama 3.3 70B and DeepSeek-V3 can enhance their usability by adding proper error management, improving variable naming, and including detailed comments.