DeepSeek
Strong open-weight models at a fraction of frontier API pricing.
Overview
DeepSeek publishes open-weight models with strong reasoning and coding performance, offered through a free chat interface and an API priced far below Western frontier providers. For cost-sensitive API work and for teams that want to self-host, it is the most-discussed option.
Key features
Open weights
Download and run the models on your own hardware.
Reasoning models
Step-by-step reasoning for maths and code.
Low API cost
Order-of-magnitude cheaper than frontier APIs.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chat | Free | Web and mobile |
| API | From ~$0.30/1M tokens | Well below frontier pricing |
| Self-hosted | Free | Open weights, your own infrastructure |
Pricing last checked: Aug 1, 2026. Always confirm current pricing on the official site.
Pros & cons
Pros
- Dramatically cheaper API for high-volume work
- Open weights allow self-hosting and data control
- Strong coding and reasoning performance
Cons
- Data handling on the hosted service needs review before sending sensitive material
- Ecosystem and tooling are thinner than the major providers
Who it's not for
A recommendation is only worth something if it says who should skip the tool. DeepSeek is a poor fit if:
- Sensitive commercial work β data is processed under Chinese jurisdiction
- Teams needing contractual data protections and support SLAs
- Anyone whose organisation restricts foreign-hosted AI services
Privacy & your data
Consumer service processes data on servers under Chinese jurisdiction, which several governments and companies restrict; self-hosting the open-weights models locally avoids this entirely and is the reason many use it.
Policies change. This summary reflects our last review β the vendor's current privacy policy is always the authority.
Integrations
How to use
Test on your real workload
Run your actual prompts side by side with your current provider before switching on cost alone.
Decide hosted vs self-hosted
Use the API for convenience; self-host when data residency or privacy matters.
FAQs
- Is it safe for company data?
- Review the hosted service's data policy against your requirements. If it doesn't fit, self-hosting the open weights is the alternative.
User reviews
No user reviews of DeepSeek yet. If you have used it properly, yours would be the first.
Used DeepSeek? Write a review.
You need an account so each person reviews a tool once β that is the whole anti-spam mechanism, and it is why these are worth reading.
Sign in to reviewAlternatives
ChatGPT
8.9General-purpose AI assistant for writing, analysis and everyday tasks.
Verdict: The safest default assistant: broadest feature set and ecosystem, excellent for general work. Specialists beat it in narrow lanes β research with citations, very long documents β but as a first AI tool it is hard to argue against.
Claude
8.8AI assistant known for long documents, careful writing and coding.
Verdict: The strongest choice for long documents, careful writing and agentic coding. Writing quality and instruction-following are class-leading; the ecosystem of third-party plugins is smaller than ChatGPT's.