AI chatbot tools utilising natural language processing are hugely popular and widely used in the tech sector. ChatGPT, launched by Open AI, was the first among them and has been the go-to option for business professionals until DeepSeek R1 was introduced. Offering advanced capabilities & performance rivaling other models, especially ChatGPT, this has led to the DeepSeek vs ChatGPT phenomenon. As both these tools offer unique strengths, let’s analyse those and how they differ in this blog. Let’s get started.
When ChatGPT was launched, it took the world by storm and offered never-before-seen content marketing possibilities. Other tech companies, such as Google, Meta, and Anthropic, followed suit and launched their respective versions, which are Gemini, Llama, Claude AI, etc. Now, with DeepSeek emerging as a major player and a major competitor to ChatGPT, let’s uncover more details about DeepSeek vs ChatGPT and see which one prevails over the other.
ChatGPT was introduced by OpenAI with the first version, GPT 3.5, which launched in November 2022. The tool offered versatile generative AI capabilities and excelled in various tasks, including general information retrieval, creative writing, coding assistance, and a lot more. Upon release, ChatGPT has been praised for its unique advantages and has been widely adopted across different industries. ChatGPT 4.5 is the latest model launched by the company.
Now, coming to DeepSeek, this is also a generative AI chatbot developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and first introduced in 2023. However, its most innovative model, R1, was launched in January 2025. Upon launch, it quickly became the top free app to be downloaded on Apple’s App Store, surpassing ChatGPT.
Source: Zapier (Left: ChatGPT, Right: DeepSeek)
For starters, the AI model can achieve performance comparable to ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost. Yep, that’s right. If you didn’t know, the cost to train ChatGPT o1 was around $100-$200 million. In contrast, DeepSeek R1 was trained using 2,000 of Nvidia’s older H800 chips, costing around $5.6 million, and that’s not all.
The Chinese company claims that their model is 20 to 40 times cheaper to run compared to other AI models. No wonder this new AI tool is making headlines. Even though DeepSeek is considered a worthy challenger, many other ChatGPT alternatives exist on the web, such as Gemini, Claude AI, etc.
You can learn in detail about Claude AI vs ChatGPT in our another blog.
It’s no doubt that both these tools are state-of-the-art AI language models, however, they have their differences when it comes to processing user prompts and delivering results. Let’s dive in and analyse the factors that make them unique.
One of the most important ChatGPT and DeepSeek comparison is their architecture. Despite both tools offering a similar user interface for inputing queries, they work quite differently in the backend. According to OpenAI, ChatGPT uses a traditional transformer model for processing and delivering responses to user queries. It consists of 1.8 trillion parameters optimized to deal with versatile tasks. This means that a fixed set of parameters is activated for each task. Just think about having multiple experts working on every task. This approach leads to higher computational costs and is less efficient.
DeepSeek R1, on the other hand, utilizes an approach called a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE). The tool comprises over 671 billion parameters but activates only 37 billion parameters per query. This is like having a team of multiple experts, and when a task pops up, only the relevant ones are called to deal with it. Through this approach, DeepSeek has to only activate the essential resources to fulfil each task, potentially optimising performance and efficiency.
Speaking of DeepSeek vs ChatGPT performance, each has its strengths. When it comes to technical subject queries such as mathematics, coding, reasoning, etc, DeepSeek R1 has shown remarkable performance and is capable of achieving a 90% accuracy rate. This doesn’t make ChatGPT bad in any way, as it is also capable of demonstrating stronger capabilities in understanding context, creative writing and providing nuanced responses across a wider range of topics. The DeepSeek vs ChatGPT benchmarks also have a similar story to tell, all of which can be checked out below.
Source: DeepSeek Release Papers
As the DeepSeek vs ChatGPT performance is now understood, let’s move on to customization. DeepSeek offers better customization options to users but at a steeper learning curve, making it best suited for those with technical knowledge. In contrast, ChatGPT is all about providing a polished user-friendly experience, accessible to all, however, the customization options are limited.
Another major ChatGPT and DeepSeek comparison is their cost and accessibility factor. ChatGPT typically operates on a freemium model. This means that there is a free version that offers basic features and subscription plans offering premium advanced features. DeepSeek, on the other hand, implements an open-source approach, which means it is free to use and can be modified by the community.
Offering similar benefits, the competition between DeepSeek vs ChatGPT can make it difficult to choose the right one. However, to answer the question of choosing the best one, it all comes down to your specific business requirements. If you are struggling in this area, let us break it down based on the following categories:
If your area of expertise is in any of these or categories such as data analysis, technical documentation, etc., DeepSeek R1 suits you best. One of the reasons behind this is its high accuracy rates when it comes to processing technical queries. Since the tool is open-source, this allows a high degree of customization and integration options, however, the learning curve is on the higher side, which is ideal for technical people.
If your overall purpose is content creation, casual learning or creating content for business presentations, ChatGPT is the obvious choice. Offering a natural, more nuanced language generation, this makes it ideal for such tasks. In other words, if you are into both technical and non-technical communication, using ChatGPT will suffice for your general needs. If you are into subscription plans, ChatGPT offers that too, with additional benefits.
Since both ChatGPT & DeepSeek collect personal data and other important information to improve their AI models, ensuring the data’s security and privacy is essential. If these are your major concerns, then ChatGPT is better and for good reason. ChatGPT’s data-handling policies are transparent and have stricter compliance with international privacy regulations.
However, when it comes to DeepSeek, the collected data are stored in Chinese servers that can be exploited by the state government for malicious intent. This is a concern for most of the nations worldwide and has led to countries such as the US, Australia, Italy, and South Korea imposing bans on the AI model.
Is DeepSeek better than ChatGPT? There isn’t a clear winner when it comes to ChatGPT and DeepSeek comparison. It all comes down to identifying your requirements and aligning them with either one of them to see which one fits. Both AI models provide different benefits for different requirements. Check another way. If your use cases are technical and you need something affordable, then DeepSeek R1 will be the best choice. If you want a kind of AI tool that performs various activities, for day-to-day general use, then ChatGPT is for you.If you love reading such informative and trendy articles, you should visit GTECH, a leading search engine optimization company in Dubai, UAE.
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