Side-by-side comparison of DeepSeek R1 (DeepSeek · China) and IBM Granite 4.1 8B (IBM · USA) for self-hosted deployment of the open-weight model. DeepSeek R1 is rated conditional; IBM Granite 4.1 8B is EU-ready. They part ways on licence: DeepSeek R1 is "MIT", IBM Granite 4.1 8B is "Apache 2.0".
| Field | ||
|---|---|---|
| Summary | ||
| Verdict | Conditional Frontier reasoning model at o1-class performance. MIT licence makes weights legally clean. Same Chinese-origin alignment/supply-chain considerations as DeepSeek V3. Distilled Qwen/Llama versions inherit their base licence. | EU-ready Per the published model card, Granite 4.1 8B is an Apache 2.0 9B-parameter dense decoder with a 131k-token context, sourced from publicly-available datasets, internal synthetic data and human-curated material. IBM continues the unusual-for-the-industry training-data transparency that anchored the Granite 3 family, and offers IP indemnification when the model is consumed via watsonx — a strong default for regulated enterprise pilots that need a defensible weights-available alternative to hyperscaler frontier models. |
| Last reviewed | 2026-04-15 | 2026-05-03 |
| Open-weight | ||
| Licence | MIT | Apache 2.0 |
| Commercial use | Yes | Unrestricted |
| Training data | Undisclosed | Disclosed |
| Origin | China | USA |
| Performance & pricing? | ||
| Quality index | 27/100 | — |
| Speed | — | — |
| Blended price | $2.36/M | — |
| Context window | — | — |
| Evidence | ||
| Sources | ||
No overlapping sources between the two entries.