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Open-source large language and reasoning models, efficiently trained

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Coverage fromBloombergReuters
8 reviews tracked·360 press mentions

The Bottom Line

Entry price

Free plan available, paid tiers above

Biggest pro

Dramatically lower costs than GPT-4 (up to 27x cheaper)

Biggest con

Server capacity issues during peak times

TL;DR - DeepSeek

  • 27x more cost-efficient than GPT-4
  • Open-source MIT-licensed models
  • Chain-of-thought reasoning for math and code
Pricing: Free plan available
Best for: Growing teams
4.5/5 across review platforms

What is DeepSeek?

Editorial review
DeepSeek is an AI lab that builds open-source large language models and reasoning models, released openly under permissive licenses. It is known for delivering strong performance with notably efficient, lower-cost training, which lets teams self-host or access the models cheaply via API.

Available on: Web, iOS, Android

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Dramatically lower costs than GPT-4 (up to 27x cheaper)
  • 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

4.5(8 reviews)

Ratings aggregated from independent review platforms. Learn more

Key Features

DeepSeek-V3 and R1 large language modelsChain-of-thought visible reasoning64K token output supportAPI access with pay-per-token pricingSelf-hosting with MIT licenseCode generation and debuggingMathematical problem solving

Pricing Plans

Free Trial

Pricing checked May 28, 2026

Free

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

Reviews

4.5/5

Across 8 verified user reviews on G2

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DeepSeek FAQ

How does DeepSeek compare to GPT-4?

DeepSeek offers comparable performance to GPT-4 on coding and reasoning tasks at approximately 27x lower cost. While GPT-4 may have slight edges in creative writing, DeepSeek excels at technical tasks.

Can I self-host DeepSeek?

Yes, DeepSeek models are MIT-licensed and can be deployed on your own infrastructure. On-premise licensing packages start at around $18,000/year.

Is DeepSeek free to use?

DeepSeek offers a free tier with limited usage. API access uses pay-per-token pricing starting at $0.07 per million input tokens for cached requests.

Source: deepseek.com

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