What it does
Chinese research lab shipping the DeepSeek-V3 and R1 models — long-context, strong at code and math, with a free chat app and an ultra-cheap API.
Best for
Engineers and startups running high-volume codegen or reasoning workloads on a budget.
+ What Works
- +Frontier reasoning quality
- +Radically cheap API
- +Open weights available
− What Doesn't
- −Chinese-hosted default (self-host for sensitive data)
- −Fewer product surfaces than OpenAI
Pricing
Free chat · API from $0.14 / M input tokens
The Verdict
The best price-to-performance ratio in frontier AI right now.
How we tested
Every tool in the Best AI for Coding vertical is run through the same prompt battery — twenty briefs spanning technical accuracy, aesthetic control, and edge-case handling. Scores weight output quality (50%), ease of use (25%), and value (25%).
Read the full methodology →