I’ve used ChatGPT since it launched, and it retains its first-mover advantage in the AI chatbot space. However, I have decided to move to its newest direct competitor, DeepSeek, and for a good reason.
1
DeepSeek Is Free
DeepSeek is the name of a Chinese artificial intelligence company and its eponymous chatbot. Its leading models, DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1, made waves for being cheaper to train and use than comparable models.
Unlike ChatGPT and other AI tools, DeepSeek is completely free. There is no paid tier, and the free plan offers users access to the best versions of the DeepSeek model. While ChatGPT has a free tier, the powerful and versatile models are locked behind a paywall. ChatGPT Plus is $20 monthly, while ChatGPT Professional will run you $200 monthly. Paying a premium for AI apps is great for many folks, but I struggle to justify paying that much when there are so many great free AI apps.
DeepSeek offers comparable performance to ChatGPT and other leading AI tools without costing a dime. If an AI tool can deliver high-quality results for free, why wouldn’t I use it?
2
It’s Almost Open-Source
Another big selling point for DeepSeek is that it exposes some of its internal workings. While OpenAI’s ChatGPT is pretty much a black box, DeepSeek has shared its models’ training parameters (weights). This, however, doesn’t make the models open-source. The training code and data are still private, and only the results of the models’ training are public.
While this means that the project cannot be fully reproduced, DeepSeek and other open-weight models are a step in a positive direction. You can directly alter the weights in the DeepSeek model and essentially retrain the model on your own custom data. With enough examples, you will have a custom model that responds better to specific instructions.
3
It Can Be Run Locally
DeepSeek’s biggest advantage is that it can be run locally. One of the biggest frustrations with ChatGPT and other online AI chatbots is that you need an internet connection to use them. Your prompts and responses go through OpenAI’s servers, meaning you’re dependent on their infrastructure, privacy policies, and potential downtimes.
You can install and run a version of DeepSeek on your computer. It won’t have access to your internet connection, and you won’t have to send sensitive information to a large corporation’s servers. Running a local large language model (LLM) means you can experiment with the model offline with constant and consistent availability. The ability to run DeepSeek locally is a major advantage for those who want full control.
4
The Reasoning Model Reveals More of Its Thought Process
Both ChatGPT-o1 and DeepSeek-R1 append a “chain of thought” sequence to the final output that shows how the model reflected on the input before arriving at a conclusion. ChatGPT is trained to hide most of this reasoning and provide an abridged version instead. DeepSeek-R1, on the other hand, reveals more of its “thought process,” and it is easier to identify any flaws in the model’s reasoning process and optimize the prompt further.
There are many ChatGPT alternatives. While ChatGPT remains the most popular AI chatbot, DeepSeek is an excellent, free alternative.
