Open-source large language and reasoning models, efficiently trained
Visit WebsiteThe Bottom Line
Entry price
Free plan available, paid tiers above
Biggest pro
Significantly lower costs compared to leading models
Biggest con
Server capacity issues during peak times
TL;DR - DeepSeek
- Open-source under a permissive MIT license, with downloadable weights you can self-host
- DeepSeek V4 rivals closed frontier models, scoring 80.6% on SWE-bench Verified
- A fraction of the cost of closed models: about $0.44 per million input tokens and $0.87 output for V4-Pro
What is DeepSeek?
Available on: Web, iOS, Android
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Significantly lower costs compared to leading models
- Open-source MIT-licensed models for self-hosting
- Excellent performance on coding and math tasks
- Chain-of-thought reasoning for complex problems
- No vendor lock-in with self-hosting option
Cons
- Server capacity issues during peak times
- Data stored in China may raise privacy concerns
- Weaker at creative writing compared to competitors
- Occasional censorship on sensitive topics
Ratings Across the Web
DeepSeek holds an aggregate rating of 4.5 out of 5 from 8 reviews across G2, last checked March 18, 2026.
What people say
“The experience given to me by Deepseek has been excellent, free AI that is almost as smart as GPT-o1, thinking, web search and is incredibly smart.”via G2
Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more
Key Features
Pricing Plans
Free TrialPricing checked Aug 25, 2026
Free
Limited free usage
- Basic API access
- Rate limited
Pay-as-you-go
$0.07
Per million tokens
- $0.07/M input (cache hit)
- $0.56/M input (cache miss)
- $1.68/M output tokens
On-premise
$18,000/year
Self-hosted deployment
- Full infrastructure control
- No API limits
- Data stays on-premise
Is DeepSeek worth the price?
The pay-as-you-go tier is competitive for cache hits at $0.07/M input but steep for cache misses ($0.56/M) and output ($1.68/M), making it pricey for heavy usage.
The on-premise option at $18k/year is a significant upfront cost but offers full control and no API limits, appealing to enterprises with strict data privacy needs. Overall, it's a fair but not overly generous pricing model, best for cost-sensitive developers or compliance-heavy organizations.
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Output token pricing is high at $1.68/M
On-premise requires $18k upfront annual fee
Reviews
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DeepSeek FAQ
What kind of AI tasks is DeepSeek particularly strong at handling?
How does DeepSeek's pricing model compare to other large language models?
What are the main advantages of using DeepSeek's open-source models?
What are some potential drawbacks or limitations when using DeepSeek?
How does DeepSeek compare to Google Gemini for AI assistant applications?
Who would benefit most from using DeepSeek's language and reasoning models?
Can DeepSeek's models be integrated into custom AI agent workflows?
Source: deepseek.com