DeepSeek VS ChatGPT: Which One is Better?

Introduction

At the beginning of 2025, DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, released a new model, DeepSeeker R1， which became a global hot topic. According to DeepSeek's paper, this model's performance is similar to OpenAI's GPT model, and its computational cost is at a fraction of OpenAI.

Therefore, some people believe that DeepSeek has already defeated ChatGPT. But is that true? In this article, we will compare DeepSeek and ChatGPT from multiple dimensions and try to answer the question: Is DeepSeek a Better Model Than ChatGPT?

What is DeepSeek AI?

DeepSeek, a Chinese-owned company headquartered in Hangzhou, was founded by Liang Wenfeng. The DeepSeek founder was also a co-founder of DeepSeek's quant-focused hedge fund, High-Flyer.

Although DeepSeek is only two years old, it has grown rapidly, releasing several major models in the past year.

Key components of DeepSeek:

• Excellent AI model: The company's latest AI model, DeepSeek-R1, has shown excellent reasoning and mathematical performance on multiple benchmarks. Its overall performance is comparable to that of other well-known LLM models (including OpenAI's GPT-4o).
• Technological innovation: Due to export restrictions from the United States on top chips, DeepSeek can not have acting chips. States' export restrictions, as are Nvidia's H100. To address this, the world's top-performing innovative techniques, such as Mixed Experts (MoE), improve the training efficiency of the model and achieve great success, model's training efficiency and has
• Low training cost: In publicly released papers, DeepSeek claims that the training cost of its R1 model is only around $5.5 million. Compared to the billions of dollars spent by leading LLM companies such as OpenAI, this cost is strikingly low, maybe lower than 1/10th of OpenAI's training cost.
• Open source: After developing high-performance AI models, DeepSeek chose to open source them and publicly release their research papers. This means that its code, algorithms, and training details can be viewed, downloaded, and copied by anyone.

These key components of DeepSeek are so impressive that the company quickly became a worldwide tech phenomenon. According to Google Trends, in January 2025, DeepSeek became a new buzzword in the Tech/AI world.

ChatGPT: The Established Leader

OpenAI was founded in 2015 and released ChatGPT, the world's most advanced intelligent chatbot, in 2022.

Many people didn't know there was an AI company called OpenAI for a long time. Despite this, OpenAI continues to update technology and release new models.

ChatGPT was launched in November 2022. This AI chatbot based on the GPT-3.5 architecture developed by OpenAI has impressed users with its human-like conversational skills.

Within a few months of its launch, OpenAI became a global hot topic. As a result, its user base has grown rapidly. Within five days, it gained 1 million users. By January 2023, it has reached 100 million monthly users, faster than TikTok or Instagram.

Through continuous upgrades, ChatGPT has become a leader in intelligent chatbots. ChatGPT's impact is everywhere. GPT has now become an integral component for businesses and people alike, assisting them with automating mundane and repetitive tasks.

DeepSeek VS ChatGPT

In this article, I will compare DeepSeek and ChatGPT from multiple perspectives, including:

1. User Growth and Adoption

2. Performance Benchmark Testing

3. Comparision of Real World Use Cases

4. Pricing

5. Applications

1. User Growth and Adoption

Both ChatGPT and DeepSeek have achieved phenomenon user growth since their launches. However, DeepSeek’s explosive user growth looks much more impressive, surpassing any super app in human history.

According to aicpb, it took DeepSeek only seven days to acquire 100 million users (both on the app and the web), while it took ChatGPT two months to reach this number. Other social media super apps took even longer time to reach 100mil users.

2. Performance Benchmark Testing

DeepSeek and ChatGPT are both intelligent chatbots. To determine which is better, we should compare the large language models (LLMs) that power them.

The data website Artificial Analysis tests multiple artificial intelligence models worldwide. It comes up with an Intelligence Index by comparing various performance metrics, such as knowledge, maths, and programming. The higher an AI model's score, the stronger its comprehensive ability is.

The data below shows that the DeepSeek R1 model scores slightly lower than OpenAI's o3-mini and o1 models, but the three models' scores are very close. This indicates that OpenAI is still in the lead, but DeepSeek may surpass it at any time.

Based on the following evaluations, DeepSeek-R1 only beats OpenAI's o3-mini in a few tests. Overall, ChatGPT, based on the o3-mini model, scores better (5/8 tests) than DeepSeek's R1 model. However, what makes DeepSeek stand out is its reasoning capability.

3. Comparision of Real World Use Cases

We also run our own comparision to find out which model is better. We used real life experiments to see whether DeepSeek or ChatGPT provides a better answer.

• Content Creation Task

One way to judge the richness and depth of AI-created content quickly is to look at the article outline created by AI. To verify this, I asked DeepSeek and ChatGPT to generate an article outline for me to introduce NVIDIA.

DeepSeek and ChatGPT outline their article about NVIDIA with 11 key points. Overall, DeepSeek covers all the key points mentioned by ChatGPT, such as company history, business, and financial reports. However, DeepSeek also mentions some key points that ChatGPT does not, such as Corporate Culture and leadership. DeepSeek's answers are more comprehensive, so I would give the winner to DeepSeek in this simple test.

• Investment Strategy Task

Now, let's try to consult DeepSeek and ChatGPT for investment strategies. I asked them to design an investment plan to achieve a 30% return rate in 5 years.

Both DeepSeek and ChatGPT suggested that I invest 60% of my money in stocks and the rest in cryptos.

However, ChatGPT's response showed that it did not fully understand my question and made a mistake in allocating funds. I was confused when it suggested that I put $6,000 in stocks and then told me to invest a total of $10,000 in S&P 500 ETFs and individual stocks.

On the other hand, DeepSeek understood my question and recommended some specific stocks and cryptocurrencies for me.

• Coding Task

I gave them a simple task for the coding assignment: create a "Snake" game based on HTML in one file. Both DeepSeek and ChatGPT responded quickly and gave answers. 

Unfortunately, only the code provided by ChatGPT could successfully play the "Snake" game. When I ran the code provided by DeepSeek, it kept showing "Game Over". So, I would say ChatGPT beat DeepSeek in this coding test.

4. Pricing

Anyone can chat with ChatGPT and DeepSeek for free. For DeepSeek, you can use the latest powerful model, DeepSeek-R1, for free. But for ChatGPT, you need a paid subscription, $20/month for Individual users, to use OpenAI's latest model. Therefore, DeepSeek is an attractive option for those who want a powerful AI experience at a low cost.

However, you must pay to use DeepSeek's model via APIs to build your own applications. Compared with OpenAI's models, however, DeepSeek's model price is so much more competitive. DeepSeek's input price for 1 million tokens is as low as $0.07. On the other hand, the input price for OpenAI’s GPT-4o-mini for 1 million tokens is $2.50 (35.7x DeepSeek), and for o3-mini, the input price is $1.10 (15.7x DeepSeek) per million tokens.

5. Applications

After years of development and improvement, ChatGPT has been recognized by many well-known companies and integrated into their applications. For example, Apple has stated that ChatGPT will be incorporated into their iPhone 16 series. DeepSeek is still a new AI player. Although it is promising, its long-term potential remains to be seen.

Conclusion

From my above tests, ChatGPT is better than DeepSeek in code writing, but DeepSeek certainly outperforms GPT in deep thinking and reasoning scenarios. So please give them a try to see which one better suits your needs.

As the AI industry develops fast, today's winner is no guarantee of tomorrow's leader. But one thing is certain: more competition will benefit the end users with fast declining costs and better AI performance. Maybe the full realization of AGI is not in the distant future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is DeepSeek a publicly traded company?

No. DeepSeek is a startup company that is not listed in any country or region.

Is DeepSeek free to use?

Yes, DeepSeek is free to use. The AI models, including DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3, are available for free on various platforms, such as OpenRouter. Additionally, the models are open-source, allowing users to download and run them locally.

Is ChatGPT free to use?

Yes, ChatGPT is free to use with some limitations. The free tier allows users access to the base model, which includes capabilities like text-based conversations, basic data analysis, and limited image generation. For an enhanced experience, you can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus, which costs $20 monthly.