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There's A New AI in Town? What's Deepseek like?

DeepSeek just dropped, and the buzz is real—cheaper than ChatGPT, open-source, and holding its own against AI giants. But is it actually better?

DeepSeek just dropped its R1 model earlier this month, and the buzz has been huge. This open-source AI’s capacity isn’t just impressive—it’s holding its own against heavyweights like OpenAI, Meta, and Google. And, at a fraction of the cost these others are being run on.

The release sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley. On Monday, tech stocks took a hit, with Nvidia—one of the biggest players in the chipmaking game—dropping as much as 18%, taking about $US590 billion from the company’s market cap.

DeepSeek has officially made its move, and everyone’s watching. While OpenAI reportedly spends tens of millions training each of its models, DeepSeek claims to have pulled it off for just over $5.5 million, raising serious questions about how much money is spent on chips and other AI infrastructure. 

The new model shows that AI models could be run on less advanced and few Nvidia chips at around 1/30th of the cost and potentially perform to the same standard, if not better—and that cost-saving seems to extend to its users. 

Deepseek vs ChatGPT Comparison

Subscription

DeepSeek is completely free, while ChatGPT offers both free and paid versions. However, the free version of ChatGPT comes with limitations—like restricted uploads and capped usage.

Availability

Deepseek is currently struggling with availability due to the increased demand since it gained popularity. At the time of writing, registering a new account on the website has been slow due to “large-scale malicious attacks” and maybe volume, as people sign up to give it a try. 

DeepSeek Website

With ChatGPT, you get a ready-to-go interface which lets you try it out before signing up and creating an account. 

ChatGPT Interface

Quality of Responses

ChatGPT-generated text is known for being easy to spot as AI-written. On the other hand, Deepseek’s responses are not much better. The prompt “Write me a single paragraph on the benefits of using argan oil in natural 4c hair.” saw pretty similar results, though ChatGPT was more concise. 

ChatGPT's response:

ChatGPT's response

DeepSeek's response:

DeepSeek Response

Speed of Results

When it comes to speed, ChatGPT still takes the lead. The above prompt was answered in five seconds using its free plan while DeepSeek answered after “thinking” for 18 seconds. 

Version Comparison

Deepseek is currently on DeepSeek-V3, while ChatGPT’s GPT-4o benefits from a larger training dataset. As a result, GPT-4o has the edge in overall performance and refinement—for now.

Rate Limiting

With a free Deepseek account, there’s no rate limiting, making it accessible for frequent use. ChatGPT’s free access comes with clear limits, requiring users to wait about two hours or prompting users to upgrade to the paid version. Paid plans unlock higher request-per-minute (RPM) and tokens-per-minute (TPM) limits.

Is DeepSeek Better Than ChatGPT?

DeepSeek and ChatGPT are solid at answering questions and solving problems, but they are different in how they go about it. ChatGPT has features like generating images, interacting with tools like Canvas, and even visualising images. Plus, it’s got voice interaction, making the whole experience—for me, a voice note fiend—a lot more flexible and fun to use.

I asked both a few questions:

Here: The inequality |x − 2| < 6 can be expressed in the form a < x < b where a =? and

b = .?

ChatGPT’s response:

ChatGPT's response to Math

DeepSeek’s response:

DeepSeek’s response to Math

What stood out for me is that it shows you how it thinks, with its logic path in text before providing you with a final answer. I think this would work well as a study guide. While it might not have all the bells and whistles ChatGPT does, it’s built to handle complex topics.

If you're all about conversational or creative tasks, ChatGPT still wears the crown—especially for topics like news or current events, especially with censorship concerns.  

I also asked “What happened at Tiananmen Square?”

DeepSeek’s response:

“What happened at Tiananmen Square?”  DeepSeek’s response

ChatGPT’s response:

“What happened at Tiananmen Square?”  ChatGPT’s response

I think it’s fair considering the headstart it has had compared to Deepseek, but when it comes to technical work, DeepSeek is getting plenty of love. Whether it’s logical reasoning, coding, or complex math, many users say DeepSeek delivers better results.

For most everyday tasks, DeepSeek and ChatGPT produce comparable outputs. The big difference is that DeepSeek is free, while ChatGPT’s premium tier will set you back $20 a month.

It’s still too early to say but if you want a versatile tool that can handle a variety of tasks, ChatGPT is for you. But if you're looking for a platform with detailed, expert-level responses, DeepSeek shines in that department. Both are great, just depends on what you need!

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