The honest, $0-markup cost to run Qwen3 1.7B (Qwen, 2B) and DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B (deepseek-ai, 1.8B), side by side — free on your own machine, on your own rented GPU at the vendor's price, or via your own API key.
| Qwen3 1.7B | DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B | |
|---|---|---|
| Parameters | 2B | 1.8B |
| Context window | 41K | ✓ 131.1K |
| License | Commercial OK | Commercial OK |
| VRAM to run | ~5.0 GB (Q4_K_M) | ✓ ~3.0 GB (Q4_K_M) |
| Rent a GPU | $0.06/hr | $0.06/hr |
| Your API key | $0.12/1M (est.) | ✓ $0.11/1M (est.) |
VRAM, size, context and license are facts from the catalog and the shared cost engine; API prices are real where we have them (labeled "est." otherwise). We don't rank model quality or quote benchmarks here.
Full cost breakdown: Qwen3 1.7B →
Full cost breakdown: DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 1.5B →
Open the free Spanvero advisor → to compare them live for your exact workload and hardware.
Spanvero · All comparisons · Prices as of 2026-07-06. $0 markup, your own accounts, we never resell compute. © 2026 Cynosure LLC.
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