Laguna S 2.1 Released: Cheaper than DeepSeek V4 Flash, Better than V4 Pro

[AINews] "Laguna S 2.1 Released: Cheaper than Deepseek v4 Flash, Better than V4 Pro"

Poolside released Laguna S 2.1, which a Reddit user summed up as cheaper than DeepSeek V4 Flash and better than V4 Pro. The Western neolab's model is competitive with Thinking Machines on benchmarks while being roughly 10x smaller. The post doesn't disclose exact pricing or latency, but points to a tech report and a Latent Space podcast episode for the breakdown.

Why it matters: Poolside's Laguna S 2.1 matches Thinking Machines benchmarks with ~10x fewer parameters and claims pricing below DeepSeek V4 Flash—a rare hard launch from a Western neolab. The post doesn't disclose exact pricing or latency, so the score stays below 80.