DeepSeek is a Chinese AI lab producing some of the strongest open-weight models. DeepSeek V4-Pro posts 80.6% SWE-bench Verified (self-reported) with MIT-licensed weights at $0.44/1M, and V4-Flash undercuts nearly everything at $0.14/1M. R1 and V3 remain solid budget picks.
Rankings refresh dailyScored on 6 criteriaNo paid rankings
DeepSeek R1 rivals GPT-5.4 on math and reasoning benchmarks
MIT licensed — fully open for commercial use
Training cost fraction of frontier closed models
4 models
All DeepSeek Models
Every DeepSeek model in the directory, ranked by overall capability score.
DeepSeekBudget
DeepSeek V4-Pro
DeepSeek's 1.6T-parameter (49B active) MoE flagship with hybrid sparse attention — near-frontier coding and reasoning at roughly a tenth of closed-rival pricing, MIT-licensed open weights.
Verdict
Best open-weights flagship — near-frontier coding at a tenth of the price.
Quality score
82%
Pricing
$0.43/1M in
$0.87/1M out
Speed
Balanced
3/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Open-weight preview April 24; GA ~July 20, 2026. Off-peak pricing verified on api-docs.deepseek.com; Beijing-business-hours surge doubles it. Legacy deepseek-chat/reasoner endpoints retired July 24, 2026.
A 284B-parameter (13B active) MoE workhorse re-post-trained for agentic and coding tasks — beats the V4-Pro preview on every published agent benchmark at ultra-commodity pricing.
Verdict
Best agentic capability per dollar in the directory.
Quality score
76%
Pricing
$0.14/1M in
$0.28/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
1M tokens
Official V4-Flash-0731 release July 31, 2026; weights on Hugging Face, API in public beta. Only DeepSeek model supporting the Responses API. DeepSeek has warned of a future price increase.
Open-source frontier model from DeepSeek that matches GPT-4o class performance at a fraction of the cost — the most disruptive budget option for coding and general tasks.
Verdict
GPT-4o-class coding quality at under $0.30/1M — the best value in the directory.
Quality score
71%
Pricing
$0.27/1M in
$1.10/1M out
Speed
Fast
4/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
DeepSeek V3 shocked the market on release. At this price point with this capability level, it forces a reconsideration of when premium models are actually worth it.
Open sourceBudgetCodingDeepSeek
Best for
Coding, reasoning, and general tasks at extreme cost efficiency
Open-source reasoning model that matches o1-class performance on math, science, and complex coding at a fraction of the cost — the best open alternative to proprietary reasoning models.
Verdict
Open-source o1-class reasoning at a fraction of the cost.
Quality score
68%
Pricing
$0.55/1M in
$2.19/1M out
Speed
Deliberate
1/5 speed
Context
128k tokens
R1 is a genuine milestone for open-source AI. The reasoning quality is real — the tradeoff is latency, not capability.
ReasoningOpen sourceBudgetDeepSeek
Best for
Math, science, complex reasoning, and multi-step problem solving at budget cost
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DeepSeek FAQ
What is DeepSeek's best model in 2026?
DeepSeek V4-Pro (July 2026) — 80.6% SWE-bench Verified self-reported at $0.44/$0.87 per 1M, MIT licensed. DeepSeek V4-Flash is the extreme-budget pick at $0.14/$0.28 with Terminal-Bench scores that rival models 30x its price. R1 remains strong for math and reasoning.
How does DeepSeek compare to Claude and GPT?
DeepSeek V4-Pro's 80.6% SWE-bench Verified (self-reported) sits in the same band as Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 at roughly a tenth of the price. The closed frontier — Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol — still leads by ~15 points. The key advantage is MIT licensing: run it via Groq, Together AI, or self-hosted.
Is DeepSeek safe to use?
DeepSeek models are open-weight and can be self-hosted, giving full control over data. The API (api.deepseek.com) processes data through DeepSeek's servers in China — teams with data residency requirements should use self-hosted deployments or US-based providers like Groq or Together AI instead.