Although it has been in development for a few years, Deepseek seems to have arrived almost overnight after the release of its R1 model on January 20 stormed the AI world, mainly because it offers performances which compete with Chatgpt-O1 without charging you to use it. Its application is currently number one on the iPhone app store due to its instant popularity.
Deepseek is an AI startup belonging to Chinese and has developed its latest LLMS (called Deepseek-V3 and Deepseek-R1) to be up to the Chatgpt-4o and Chatgpt-O1 competitors while costing the price for its API connections. And because of how it works, Deepseek uses much less computing power to process requests.
Some security experts have expressed their concern about data confidentiality when using Deepseek because it is a Chinese company. Obviously, given the recent legal controversy surrounding Tiktok, it is feared that all the data she captures can fall into the hands of the Chinese state.
Deepseek has already endured “malicious attacks”, which led to service failures that forced him to restrict who can register. Stay up to date on all the latest news with our blog live on the breakdown.
What is Deepseek?
Deepseek is the name of the Chinese startup that created the LLM Deepseek-V3 and Deepseek-R1, founded in May 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an influential figure of the Hedge Fund and the AI Industries.
The first Deepseek product was Deepseek Coder, published in November 2023. Deepseek-V2 followed in May 2024 with an aggressively hunted pricing plan which caused a disturbance of the Chinese AI market, forcing rivals to reduce their prices.
The company’s current LLM models are Deepseek-V3 and Deepseek-R1. The two have impressive benchmarks compared to their rivals, but use far fewer resources because of how LLM have been created. Deepseek-V3 is a model for general use, while Deepseek-R1 focuses on reasoning tasks.
Deepseek was able to quickly develop LLM using an innovative training process that is based on trials and errors to improve. Thus, in essence, the LLM models of Deepseek learn in a similar way to human learning, by receiving comments according to their actions. They also use a MOE architecture (mixture of experts), they therefore activate that a small fraction of their parameters at a given moment, which considerably reduces the calculation cost and makes them more effective.
Tl; DR – What is Deepseek?
Deepseek offers a quality AI comparable to chatgpt, but is completely free to use in the form of a chatbot. Some of the chatgpt bells and whistles are missing, in particular the creation of AI videos and images, but we expect it to improve over time.
To use Deepseek as a chatbot, you can just go to Deepseek.com and click Start now. You will need to create an account to use it, but you can connect with your Google account if you wish.
Alternatively, you can download the Deepseek app for iOS or Android, and use the chatbot on your smartphone.
Deepseek price: How much does it cost and can you get a subscription?
You don’t need to subscribe to Deepseek because, in its chatbot form at least, it is free. The Deepseek chatbot by default uses the Deepseek-V3 model by default, but you can go to its R1 model at any time, simply clicking on the “Deepthink (R1)” button under the prompt bar.
If you want to use Deepseek more professionally and use the APIs to connect to Deepseek for tasks like coding in the background, there is a charge. Currently, it is only $ 0.55 per mission entrance tokens and $ 2.19 per million exit tokens. This is compared very favorably to the Openai API, which costs $ 15 and $ 60.
Deepseek and Chatgpt: What are the main differences?
Although its LLM can be super powerful, Deepseek seems to be quite basic compared to its competitors with regard to features. In terms of chat with the chatbot, it’s exactly the same as the use of Chatppt – you just type something in the quick bar, like “Tell me about Stoics” and you will get an answer, which you can then Develop with invited follow-up, like “explain to me that as if I were a 6 year old child”. The answers you get from the two chatbots are very similar.
What you will notice most is that Deepseek is limited by not containing all the extras that you get with Chatgpt. For example, you will notice that you cannot generate AI images or videos using Deepseek and that you do not get any of the tools that Chatgpt offers, like Canvas or the possibility of interacting with personalized GPTs like ” Insta Guru “and” Designergpt “.
If you are a chatgpt plus subscriber, there is a variety of LLM that you can choose when using the Chatppt. In Deepseek, you just have two – Deepseek -V3 is the default value and if you want to use its advanced reasoning model, you must press or click on the “Deepthink (R1)” button before entering your prompt.
There are also fewer options in the parameters to personalize in Deepseek, so it is not as easy to suppress your answers. In short, Deepseek looks very much like Chatgpt without all the bells and whistles. We tested Deepseek and Chatgpt using the same guests to see what we prefer.
Deepseek and Chatgpt: Key differences
Deepseek: Free to use, much cheaper APIs, but only the basic functionality of the chatbot.
Chatgpt: Requires a more or pro subscription for advanced features.
One of the best Chatgpt features is its chatgpt research function, which has recently been made available to all free levels to use. This allows you to search for the web using its conversational approach. Deepseek also offers a search feature that works exactly the same way as that of Chatgpt.
Finally, you can download images in Deepseek, but only to extract text. Chatgpt, on the other hand, is multimodal, so it can download an image and answer all the questions you may have.
Deepseek search and chatgpt research: what are the main differences?
AI research is one of the coolest uses of a chatbot AI that we have seen so far. It allows you to search for the web using the same type of conversational prompts with which you normally engage a chatbot.
Like Chatgpt, Deepseek has a search function built directly in his chatbot. Just press the search button (or click on it if you use the web version), then whatever the prompt you type becomes a web search. It couldn’t be easier to use than that, really.
Once you have done your search, for example for pizza restaurants in your city, you can ask follow-up questions, like “to these, if you were to choose a restaurant, which one would be?”
Deepseek will answer your question by recommending a single restaurant and will state its reasons. It is this ability to follow initial research with more questions, as if it was a real conversation, which makes AI search tools particularly useful.
Chatgpt and Deepseek allow you to click to display the source of a particular recommendation, however, Chatgpt does a better job to organize all its sources to make them easier to reference, and when you click on it, it opens the bar lateral quotes for easy access. On the other hand, Deepseek is a little more basic in the way he provides the search results.
How to use Deepseek-R1 for deeper reasoning
Deepseek-R1 is an advanced reasoning model, which is up to the Chatgpt-O1 model. These models are better in mathematics and questions which require a deeper reflection, so they generally take more time to respond, but they will present their reasoning in a more accessible way.
To use R1 in the Deepseek chatbot, you just press (or press if you are on mobile) the “Deepthink (R1)” button before entering your prompt. The button is on the prompt bar, next to the search button, and is highlighted when selected.
When you ask your question, you will notice that it will be slower than normal, you will also notice that it seems that Deepseek has a conversation with itself before it provides its answer. This is how you can see the reasoning process he followed to deliver it. It’s pretty fascinating!
How to go to Deepseek from Chatgpt
One thing to keep in mind before deleting chatgpt for Deepseek is that you will not have the possibility of downloading images to analyze, generate images or use some of the rupture tools like Canvas that distinguish chatgpt.
If all you want to do is ask a chatbot AI questions, generate code or extract image text, then you will find that Deepseek will currently seem to satisfy all your needs without invoice you.
We also found that we received the occasional message of Deepseek’s “high demand” which led to the failure of our request. However, Deepseek is currently entirely free to use as a chatbot on mobile and on the web, and it is a great advantage to have.
