Table of Contents
Quick Verdict
DeepSeek Coder serves 34.5 requests per second with a 70 ms median latency. CodeLlama manages 27.0 req/s at 93 ms. For a code completion API on a dedicated GPU server, DeepSeek Coder handles 28% more traffic with 25% lower per-request latency. Combined with its superior code accuracy from our generation benchmarks, DeepSeek Coder is the stronger API backbone.
CodeLlama’s only advantage is broader general-purpose capability if your API serves mixed code and natural-language queries. For pure code endpoints, DeepSeek Coder wins decisively.
Details below. More at the GPU comparisons hub.
Specs Comparison
DeepSeek Coder’s MIT licence is notably more permissive than CodeLlama’s Meta Community licence for commercial API deployments.
| Specification | CodeLlama | DeepSeek Coder |
|---|---|---|
| Parameters | 34B | 33B |
| Architecture | Dense Transformer | Dense Transformer |
| Context Length | 16K | 16K |
| VRAM (FP16) | 68 GB | 66 GB |
| VRAM (INT4) | 20 GB | 19 GB |
| Licence | Meta Community | MIT |
Guides: CodeLlama VRAM requirements and DeepSeek Coder VRAM requirements.
API Throughput Benchmark
Tested on an NVIDIA RTX 3090 with vLLM, INT4 quantisation, and continuous batching under sustained concurrent load. Check our tokens-per-second benchmark.
| Model (INT4) | Requests/sec | p50 Latency (ms) | p99 Latency (ms) | VRAM Used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CodeLlama | 27.0 | 93 | 383 | 20 GB |
| DeepSeek Coder | 34.5 | 70 | 218 | 19 GB |
DeepSeek Coder’s p99 latency of 218 ms is 43% tighter than CodeLlama’s 383 ms. For SLA-bound APIs, that gap provides substantially more headroom before hitting latency limits under load. See our best GPU for LLM inference guide.
See also: CodeLlama vs DeepSeek Coder for Chatbot / Conversational AI for a related comparison.
See also: Coqui TTS vs Kokoro TTS for API Serving (Throughput) for a related comparison.
Cost Analysis
Higher throughput on identical hardware directly reduces infrastructure cost per API call.
| Cost Factor | CodeLlama | DeepSeek Coder |
|---|---|---|
| GPU Required (INT4) | RTX 3090 (24 GB) | RTX 3090 (24 GB) |
| VRAM Used | 20 GB | 19 GB |
| Est. Monthly Server Cost | £160 | £173 |
| Throughput Advantage | 7% faster | 1% cheaper/tok |
Run numbers at our cost-per-million-tokens calculator.
Recommendation
Choose DeepSeek Coder for code completion APIs. It handles 28% more requests per second with 43% tighter tail latency, and its code output quality is superior. The MIT licence simplifies commercial deployment.
Choose CodeLlama if your API serves a mixed workload of code generation and general conversation, where CodeLlama’s stronger multi-turn coherence adds value beyond pure code completion.
Deploy with vLLM on dedicated GPU servers for production-grade throughput.
Deploy the Winner
Run CodeLlama or DeepSeek Coder on bare-metal GPU servers with full root access, no shared resources, and no token limits.
Browse GPU Servers
