The best alternatives to DeepSeek
DeepSeek might not be the right fit: the price, a missing feature or a payment model you don't like. These are the closest alternatives in our catalog, ordered by rating, with the full review of each one.
Why look for a DeepSeek alternative
The chat is still free with no paywall, and V4's weights remain open under an MIT licence on Hugging Face. This week's news comes from the vendor itself: on 6 August it confirmed on its developer platform that it will raise API pricing significantly, without giving a figure or a date, and the news spread through the press and Hacker News. Published rates, 0.14 dollars and 0.28 dollars per million tokens on Flash, have not changed yet. V4-Pro still has no official general availability date, and personal data is still processed in China as its policy states
What its own users repeat in the August 8, 2026 sweep:
- On 6 August 2026 it confirmed on its own developer platform that it will raise API pricing significantly, with no figure or date given, and the news spread through the press and Hacker News, casting doubt on whether it is still the cheap option (strong theme)
- Its privacy policy states that it collects, processes and stores personal data in the People's Republic of China (strong theme)
- Visible censorship on topics sensitive to the Chinese government, and anyone testing it runs into it without looking (strong theme)
- Improvements reach the API before the product: the vendor stated that the 31 July update leaves the app and web models untouched (strong theme)
- A minimal product around the model: it still cannot read images, which limits what it can solve on its own (present theme)
- The results it publishes come from its own runs on an unreleased harness, so it is worth measuring yourself (present theme)
Best alternatives to DeepSeek
The assistant behind the GLM models, with its weights published openly.
The AI assistant that covers the most ground.
Moonshot's assistant with a million-token context window.
What the internet says about each alternative
Z.ai (GLM) 4/5 · Free + from $18
A month after the previous sweep the entry price is still eighteen dollars a month, and the only dated news is that Hugging Face security teams again turned to GLM-5.2's open weights when commercial models refused the task
Where it wins: Price is the most cited reason to switch in technical forums, performance close to closed models for a fraction of the fee Where it slips: It is no longer the obvious pick on price, the DeepSeek V4 Flash launch contests that ground in technical forums and comparison tables
ChatGPT 3.9/5 · Free + from $20
GPT-5.6 arrived this week: Luna is now the default model for Free and Go accounts with unlimited text chats, while Plus and Pro get GPT-5.6 Sol with a reasoning slider running from instant to high. OpenAI says factual errors drop 68% for Sol and 62% for Luna versus the previous model, a company figure with no independent check. The service logged three short incidents on the official status page between August 4 and 5, all resolved the same day. The Atlas browser stops working on August 9 and folds into ChatGPT itself.
Where it wins: It covers text, code, images, voice, web search and memory across conversations in one place, and that breadth is still its best argument Where it slips: The Plus caps run out with no consumption meter in the interface, and a single long task can burn the whole period's allowance
Kimi 3.7/5 · Free + from $19
The network still reads Kimi K3 as strong on long research and open weights, but new account sign-ups remain frozen since 20 July with no reopening date, and the entry price and conversation privacy complaints are unchanged.
Where it wins: Frontier-level quality on long research and documents, still the most praised feature in app store ratings Where it slips: Three weeks after the 19 July cutoff, Moonshot's own notice still says new plans are not available for purchase, with no opening date
Comparison table
| Tool | Price | Free trial | Platforms | Rating | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek | Free | No | Web, iOS, Android | VisitDeepSeek (opens in a new tab) | |
| Z.ai (GLM) | Free + from $18 | No | Web | VisitZ.ai (GLM) (opens in a new tab) | |
| ChatGPT | Free + from $20 | No | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | VisitChatGPT (opens in a new tab) | |
| Kimi | Free + from $19 | No | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | VisitKimi (opens in a new tab) |
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