Chatgpt vs Deepseek AI: What’s the difference? [2025]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is always changing, and new language models are being created all the time. Two of the biggest ones are ChatGPT (from OpenAI) and DeepSeek (from China).

Both are known for being able to write like humans, translate languages, create different kinds of writing, and answer questions.

This blog post compares ChatGPT and DeepSeek, explaining their features, strengths, and weaknesses in a way that everyone can understand.

We’ll also look at what they might mean for how we communicate and get information in the future.

We’ll even touch upon some compelling DeepSeek AI alternatives for those exploring different options.

What are ChatGPT and DeepSeek?

ChatGPT, from OpenAI, is known for writing like a human, translating languages, creating different kinds of content, and answering questions thoroughly, even if they’re unusual.

The newest version, ChatGPT-4, can even understand and create text, audio, images, and video, making it easier to interact with computers.

It’s used for things like customer support, creating marketing materials, helping students learn, and assisting programmers. A big advantage of ChatGPT is its wide range of tools and connections with other companies, making it very versatile.  

Note: Latest Version of ChatGPT is ChatGPT 4o

DeepSeek, from a Chinese company, is also a strong AI language model.

It’s especially good at math problems, technical puzzles, and finding specific information in documents. It’s also popular because it’s open-source (meaning anyone can use and modify it) and affordable. Besides the general model, DeepSeek also has a special version called DeepSeek-Coder, which is designed specifically for writing computer code.

It’s trained on a huge amount of code in many programming languages and is one of the best open-source coding AI Assistants available.

Note: Latest Version of DeepSeek is DeepSeek-V3

ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek: Feature Comparison

While both models share the ability to understand and generate human language, they differ significantly in their architecture, strengths, and weaknesses. Here’s a closer look at their key features:

Feature	ChatGPT	DeepSeek
Architecture	Dense model with 175 billion parameters	Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture with 671 billion parameters
Training Data	Primarily English text and code	Both Chinese and English data
Strengths	Versatility, creative writing, general knowledge, conversational ability, multimodal capabilities, extensive plugin ecosystem	Efficiency, mathematical reasoning, technical problem-solving, information extraction, open-source nature
Weaknesses	Can be less efficient for specialized tasks, may generate less detailed responses for complex topics	Less versatile than ChatGPT, may not be as strong in creative writing
Cost	Freemium model with a subscription for advanced features	Free to use
Accessibility	Widely available with a user-friendly interface	Open-source with more customization options
Context Window	Larger context window of 200K tokens	Context window of 128K tokens for the V3 model

Deep Dive into Key Differences

This section provides a more in-depth look at the key differences between ChatGPT and DeepSeek, drawing on the research material to highlight their unique characteristics and capabilities.

Model Architecture

ChatGPT’s dense model employs all its parameters for every task, ensuring consistent performance across a wide range of queries. This means that whether you’re asking it to write a poem or summarize a complex research paper, ChatGPT utilizes its full knowledge base to generate a response.  

DeepSeek, on the other hand, utilizes a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) architecture. This means that for each query, DeepSeek activates only the necessary parameters, making it more efficient for specialized queries. This approach allows DeepSeek to optimize both performance and resource usage, dynamically adapting to different types of queries.  

Performance Strengths

ChatGPT excels in generating creative content, engaging in conversations, and providing general knowledge. Its ability to understand and respond to a wide range of prompts makes it a versatile tool for various applications, from writing assistance to customer service.  

DeepSeek shines in mathematical reasoning, technical problem-solving, and extracting precise information from complex documents. Its strength in these areas makes it a valuable tool for researchers, developers, and analysts who require accurate and efficient solutions to complex problems.  

Training Methods

DeepSeek employs a unique multi-stage training approach that combines supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning. This approach begins with supervised fine-tuning on a small set of carefully curated examples before applying reinforcement learning with group relative policy optimization (GRPO). This allows DeepSeek to enhance its reasoning capabilities without relying on extensive labeled data.  

Performance on Benchmarks

DeepSeek-V3 has demonstrated impressive performance on various benchmarks, including:

• HumanEval: Achieving a score comparable to leading closed-source models.  
• MBPP: Outperforming other open-source models.  
• Codeforces: Achieving a high percentile score, showcasing its coding proficiency.  

Multi-Token Prediction

DeepSeek-V3 incorporates a Multi-Token Prediction (MTP) objective, which has been shown to be beneficial for model performance. This objective can also be used for speculative decoding, further accelerating the inference process.  

Accessibility and Cost

ChatGPT offers a user-friendly interface and a freemium model, with a subscription required for advanced features. This makes it accessible to a wide range of users, from casual users to businesses with more demanding needs.  

DeepSeek is open-source and free to use, providing greater flexibility for developers and researchers. This open approach allows for customization and adaptation to specific needs and use cases.  

Language Support

While ChatGPT supports multiple languages, its primary focus is English. DeepSeek, being developed in China, has a strong emphasis on both Chinese and English. This makes DeepSeek a valuable tool for users who require strong performance in both languages.  

Efficiency

DeepSeek has demonstrated impressive efficiency in terms of training time and cost. It was trained in just 55 days using 2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs at a cost of $5.6 million. This is significantly less than the training expenses of other large language models, highlighting DeepSeek’s disruptive potential in the AI landscape.  

User Experiences

Users have reported a variety of experiences with both ChatGPT and DeepSeek. Some users appreciate ChatGPT’s user-friendly interface and ability to provide quick and accurate answers to a wide range of questions. Others find DeepSeek’s more detailed and in-depth responses to be valuable, particularly for complex topics.  

One user highlighted DeepSeek’s ability to show its “thought process,” providing a deeper understanding of how it arrives at its answers. Another user praised DeepSeek’s performance in mathematical reasoning and technical tasks.  

However, some users have noted that DeepSeek can sometimes generate repetitive responses or struggle with positional consistency in storytelling. Others have expressed concerns about DeepSeek’s data privacy practices and potential security risks associated with its open-source nature.  

Real-Life Use Cases

Both ChatGPT and DeepSeek have a wide range of potential applications across various industries. Here are some examples of how these models can be used in real-world scenarios:

ChatGPT:

• A marketing team uses ChatGPT to generate engaging social media posts and ad copy, tailoring the content to specific target audiences and platforms.
• A customer service representative uses ChatGPT to quickly answer common customer questions, freeing up human agents to handle more complex issues.
• A teacher uses ChatGPT to create interactive quizzes and learning materials for students, providing personalized learning experiences and adapting to different learning styles.

DeepSeek:

• A researcher uses DeepSeek to analyze complex scientific data and extract key insights, accelerating the research process and uncovering hidden patterns.
• A software developer uses DeepSeek to debug code and solve logic puzzles, improving code quality and efficiency.
• A financial analyst uses DeepSeek to process large datasets and identify market trends, making more informed investment decisions.
• In the legal field, DeepSeek can be used for AI-powered document review, potentially leading to a shift in revenue models from hourly billing to per-document pricing or flat fees. This could significantly reduce costs and increase efficiency in e-discovery processes.  

DeepSeek AI Alternatives

While DeepSeek presents a compelling option, it’s worth considering other alternatives in the AI landscape, especially if specific features or concerns are paramount. Here are a few noteworthy mentions:

• Gemini
• Claude (Anthropic)
• Llama 2 (Meta)

Limitations and Considerations

While both ChatGPT and DeepSeek offer impressive capabilities, it’s important to be aware of their limitations and potential drawbacks.

ChatGPT:

• Cost: While a free version is available, access to advanced features requires a subscription, which may be a barrier for some users.
• Limited Customization: While plugins offer some extensibility, ChatGPT’s closed-source nature limits the degree of customization possible.

DeepSeek:

• Limited Real-World Testing: Compared to ChatGPT, DeepSeek has less extensive real-world application data, which may affect its performance in certain scenarios.
• Potential Security Risks: Its open-source nature could lead to misuse or security vulnerabilities if not properly managed.
• Data Privacy Concerns: Questions remain about data handling practices and potential government access to user information, particularly given DeepSeek’s development in China.
• OpenAI’s Accusations: OpenAI has raised concerns about DeepSeek potentially using its proprietary data to train its model, which could have legal implications.  

Conclusion:

ChatGPT and DeepSeek are both strong AI, but they’re good at different things. ChatGPT is more versatile and creative, while DeepSeek is more efficient and specializes in certain tasks.

Which one you choose depends on what you need. If you want something that can do lots of different things, like writing creatively, having conversations, and answering general knowledge questions, and if you want something easy to use with lots of extra features, then ChatGPT might be suitable.

On the other hand, if you need something that’s really good at specific things like math, technical problems, and finding information, and if you care about efficiency and cost, and prefer something open-source that you can customize, then DeepSeek might be more appropriate.

Both of these AI models are going to be important in how we communicate and use information in the future, and their competition will probably lead to even better AI technology.