DeepSeek or ChatGPT? One is a free, open-weights Chinese model that costs a fraction of the US labs’ prices. The other is the most popular AI app in the world, with images, voice, agents and the strongest GPT-6 models.
In this November 2026 guide I compare them on the latest models (DeepSeek V4-Pro and V4.1-Flash vs GPT-6 Astra, 6.1 Sol and Luna), independent benchmarks, app features, free and paid plans, API prices, privacy and running at home, so you can pick the right one for each job.
- Smarter: ChatGPT. On Artificial Analysis, GPT-6 Astra scores 57 on the Intelligence Index against 23 for DeepSeek V4-Pro 0813, and wins every listed test.
- Cheaper: DeepSeek. The app is free with no paid tier, and V4-Pro’s API is $1.32 / $3.96 per million tokens vs $10 / $50 for GPT-6 Astra (half price off-peak).
- Features: ChatGPT by a mile: image generation, voice, vision, Codex, agent, projects, memory. DeepSeek is text-only chat with reasoning and web search.
- Open and local: only DeepSeek. All V4 models are MIT-licensed, and V4-Flash runs on a 128 GB RAM PC.
- Privacy: DeepSeek stores data in China. ChatGPT stores it in the US and lets you turn off training.
- My pick: ChatGPT Free or Plus for everyday use; DeepSeek for cheap API work, maths and coding on a budget, or offline use.
DeepSeek vs ChatGPT at a Glance
| DeepSeek | ChatGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | DeepSeek (Hangzhou, China) | OpenAI (San Francisco, US) |
| Top model | V4-Pro 0813 (1.6T total, 49B active) | GPT-6 Astra |
| Newest model | V4.1-Flash-1017 (17 Oct 2026) | GPT-6.1 Sol |
| App price | Free | Free, Go (~$8), Plus ($20), Pro ($100-$500) |
| Images in / out | Text only models | Vision input, image generation |
| Voice mode | No | Yes |
| Context | 1M tokens (API), 384K output | 27K-128K Instant, up to 400K reasoning (plan dependent) |
| Open weights | Yes, MIT licence | No (for GPT-6) |
| Data stored in | China | US |
The Models in November 2026
DeepSeek
- V4-Pro 0813 (13 Aug 2026): the flagship. 1.6 trillion-parameter mixture of experts with 49B active, 1M context, 384K output. API name
deepseek-v4-pro. - V4.1-Flash-1017 (17 Oct 2026): the newest and cheapest, served as
deepseek-flash. DeepSeek reports big gains over earlier Flash versions on agent and coding tests. - V4-Flash 0731 (31 Jul 2026): 284B total, about 13B active. The one hobbyists run at home.
- V4.1-Pro: not released yet, and no date given.
ChatGPT
- GPT-6 Astra: OpenAI’s top reasoning model (September 2026), text and image input.
- GPT-6.1 Sol and GPT-6 Sol: strong general models for Plus and Pro users.
- GPT-6 Luna: the small, fast model behind Free and Go.
- GPT-5.6 Sol Pro: extra-heavy reasoning on Pro plans.
Note: free ChatGPT runs mostly on GPT-6 Luna, not Astra. A fair “free vs free” test is DeepSeek’s V4 models against Luna, where DeepSeek is far more competitive than the headline benchmark gap suggests.
Benchmarks: Which Is Smarter?
I use Artificial Analysis here because it runs both models through the same independent tests. Both are at maximum reasoning effort.
| Test (Artificial Analysis) | GPT-6 Astra (max) | DeepSeek V4-Pro 0813 (max) |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Index v5 | 57 | 23 |
| Terminal-Bench 4.0 (agentic coding) | 59% | 14% |
| FrontierCode 2.0 (software engineering) | 42% | 17% |
| HLE-Diamond (expert questions) | 64% | 20% |
| AutomationBench | 68% | 57% |
| AA-Omniscience (penalises wrong answers) | 42 | -6 |
| Cost per task | $6.24 | $1.77 |
| Output speed | 43 tok/s | 69 tok/s |
| Time to first token | 236 s | 2.2 s |
GPT-6 Astra wins every quality test, often by a wide margin. The negative Omniscience score means V4-Pro is more likely to give a confident wrong answer than to admit it does not know.
DeepSeek’s own model card is far rosier (SWE-bench Verified 80.6%, GPQA Diamond 90.1%, LiveCodeBench 93.5%), but those are self-reported and on older, easier tests.
App Features Compared
| Feature | DeepSeek app | ChatGPT app |
|---|---|---|
| Chat and writing | Yes | Yes |
| Reasoning toggle | DeepThink | Thinking models |
| Web search | Yes | Yes (ChatGPT Search) |
| File upload | Text extraction from documents | Files, PDFs, spreadsheets with analysis |
| Understand images | Text extracted only | Full vision |
| Generate images | No | Yes (GPT-Image) |
| Voice conversation | No | Yes |
| Agent / computer use | No | Yes (agent mode, Codex) |
| Projects, memory, custom GPTs | No | Yes |
| Ads | No | Possible on Free and Go |
ChatGPT is a full productivity suite; DeepSeek is a very good, free chat box. If you need images, voice or document analysis, the choice makes itself. My ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Grok guide covers the other big apps.
Free vs Paid: What Each Costs
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek app | Free | V4 models with DeepThink and search; no paid tier |
| ChatGPT Free | $0 | GPT-6 Luna, limited uploads, images, voice and deep research |
| ChatGPT Go | About $8/month | More of everything than Free, 256K reasoning context, may show ads |
| ChatGPT Plus | $20/month | GPT-6 Astra, 6.1 Sol, deep research, Codex, projects |
| ChatGPT Pro | $100, $200 or $500/month | Much higher limits, 400K reasoning context, GPT-5.6 Sol Pro |
Plan details are in my ChatGPT Free vs Go vs Plus vs Pro guide.
API Prices for Developers
| Model | Input / 1M tokens | Output / 1M tokens | Cache hit |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek Flash (V4.1-Flash-1017), peak | $0.30 | $1.20 | $0.006 |
| DeepSeek V4-Pro, peak | $1.32 | $3.96 | $0.044 |
| GPT-6 Luna | $0.10 | $0.50 | see OpenAI |
| GPT-6.1 Sol | $2.00 | $10.00 | see OpenAI |
| GPT-6 Astra | $10.00 | $50.00 | $1.00 |
DeepSeek prices halve outside 01:00-04:00 and 06:00-10:00 UTC on weekdays. Both APIs use the same OpenAI-style SDK, so switching is often just a new base_url and model name.
More detail: DeepSeek API pricing, OpenAI API pricing and the AI API pricing comparison.
Which Is Better for Each Task
| Task | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday questions and writing | Tie (free) | Both are good; ChatGPT has better formatting and memory |
| Hard research and fact-heavy work | ChatGPT | Much higher accuracy, fewer confident errors |
| Agentic coding in a real repo | ChatGPT (Codex) | Terminal-Bench 59% vs 14% |
| Maths and competition-style puzzles on a budget | DeepSeek | Strong vendor scores, free app, cheap API |
| Images, screenshots, voice | ChatGPT | DeepSeek models are text only |
| Bulk API jobs (summaries, extraction) | DeepSeek Flash | Cheap, fast first token, 1M context |
| Offline or air-gapped use | DeepSeek | Open weights you can run yourself |
Privacy, Censorship and Safety
- Where data goes: DeepSeek’s privacy policy says data is processed and stored in the People’s Republic of China. Several governments and many companies ban the DeepSeek app on work devices.
- Training controls: ChatGPT lets you turn off “Improve the model for everyone” in Data Controls; Business and Enterprise data is not used for training by default.
- Censorship: DeepSeek’s hosted app avoids or deflects some politically sensitive topics about China. The open weights can behave differently when run elsewhere.
- Accuracy: both can hallucinate; DeepSeek’s negative Omniscience score suggests checking its facts more carefully.
Warning: do not paste customer data, passwords or confidential code into either app unless your company has approved it. For DeepSeek, use a non-China host of the open weights, or run it locally, if data location matters.
Running DeepSeek on Your Own PC
This is something ChatGPT cannot offer. Because DeepSeek’s weights are MIT-licensed, you can download and run them:
| Model | Smallest usable GGUF | Hardware |
|---|---|---|
| V4-Flash 0731 (284B MoE) | UD-IQ2_M about 91 GB | 128 GB RAM PC, GPU helps (llama.cpp b10273+) |
| V4.1-Flash-1017 | 1-bit about 233 GB (Engram tables can stay on SSD) | 128 GB RAM + 32 GB VRAM, barely, slow |
| V4-Pro 0813 (1.6T) | Several hundred GB | Server only |
A CPU-only test of V4-Flash at UD-IQ3_XXS used about 104 GB of RAM and generated 5.6 tokens per second. On a normal 16-24 GB GPU PC, smaller models from my best Ollama models list are more practical. The full local walkthrough is in DeepSeek vs Claude.
How to Start With Each (Step by Step)
DeepSeek
- Open chat.deepseek.com or install the official DeepSeek app (check the developer name, as fake apps exist).
- Sign up with email, phone or Google.
- Turn on DeepThink for maths, logic or code; leave it off for quick questions.
- Turn on Search when you need current information.
- For the API: go to platform.deepseek.com, top up a prepaid balance and create a key.
ChatGPT
- Open chatgpt.com or install the ChatGPT app from OpenAI.
- Sign in with email, Google, Microsoft or Apple.
- Pick a model (Plus and above) or let ChatGPT choose.
- Check Settings, Data Controls and decide whether your chats can be used for training.
- Upgrade on the website, not in the app store, for the lowest price.
Common Problems and Fixes
DeepSeek: “The server is busy. Please try again later.”
DeepSeek is overloaded. Wait a minute and regenerate, start a new chat, turn off DeepThink for simple questions, or try outside peak hours. API users should retry with backoff; see my DeepSeek API guide.
DeepSeek ignores the content of my image
Its models are text only, so the app only reads extracted text. Use ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for photos, charts and screenshots.
ChatGPT: “You’ve reached your limit”
Free and Go have tight caps on top models, uploads and images. Wait for the reset, switch to a lighter model, or upgrade. My ChatGPT not working guide covers 18 more errors.
DeepSeek refuses or changes the subject
Some topics are filtered in the hosted app. Rephrase neutrally, or use another model for that question.
DeepSeek is blocked at work or school
Many organisations block it on purpose for data reasons. Follow your IT policy rather than working around it.
My Take
For most people, ChatGPT is the better daily assistant: it is smarter at the top end, handles images and voice, and the free plan is generous enough for casual use.
DeepSeek earns its place in two spots: as a free second opinion for maths and code, and as a ridiculously cheap API for bulk work. If you have a 128 GB RAM PC, running V4-Flash locally is also a fun way to get a strong model with zero data leaving your desk.
FAQ
Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT?
Not overall. GPT-6 Astra scores 57 vs 23 for DeepSeek V4-Pro on Artificial Analysis. DeepSeek wins on price, openness and latency.
Is DeepSeek free?
Yes, the DeepSeek app and website are free. The API is prepaid and billed per token.
Is DeepSeek safe to use?
It is a legitimate service, but data is stored in China and many organisations restrict it. Avoid sharing sensitive information.
Can DeepSeek generate images?
No. DeepSeek’s V4 models are text only. ChatGPT can create and understand images.
Which is better for coding, DeepSeek or ChatGPT?
ChatGPT’s GPT-6 models and Codex are far stronger on agentic coding tests. DeepSeek is good value for smaller code questions and cheap API use.
Can I run DeepSeek offline?
Yes. V4-Flash runs on a PC with about 128 GB of RAM as a 2-3-bit GGUF in llama.cpp. ChatGPT’s GPT-6 models cannot run locally.
Why is DeepSeek so cheap?
Efficient mixture-of-experts models with few active parameters, aggressive caching and off-peak pricing. It also trails the top US models on hard tests.
