Our DeepSeek review
DeepSeek is a strong AI chat assistants option: strongest at maths and coding help on a budget, weakest on data handling concerns for some organisations.
We score DeepSeek 4.5 out of 5 — strong ease of use, strong performance and excellent value for money.
What DeepSeek is
DeepSeek is DeepSeek's AI chat assistants product, launched in 2023. Open-weight reasoning assistant with strong maths and coding performance, free in the app and very cheap via API.
It is aimed at beginner users — the learning curve is gentle. Day one you would use it for maths and coding help on a budget and cheap API for high-volume apps. It runs on Web, iOS and Android, including a mobile app, and there is an API if you want it inside your own systems.
Where it shines
The core strengths are easy to state: reasoning quality for free and cheapest serious API of the frontier models. The feature set behind that is strong maths and code reasoning, open weights, very low API pricing and web search in app.
We rate performance 4.4/5 and answer accuracy around 90% for the tasks in this category, which is why it holds up for maths and coding help on a budget and cheap API for high-volume apps.
Where it falls short
The honest downsides: data handling concerns for some organisations and weaker multimodal features.
Nothing here needs training, so the risk is not difficulty — it is paying for capability you never use.
Pricing and value for money
Pricing is Free app, pay-as-you-go API. There is no paid tier to weigh up, so the only cost is the time you invest in learning it. A free tier exists, so you can test it properly before paying.
Because it is free, the sensible move is to use it alongside a paid tool rather than instead of one.
Who should use DeepSeek
DeepSeek is the right call for maths and coding help on a budget and cheap API for high-volume apps. Look elsewhere if data handling concerns for some organisations is a bigger problem for you than reasoning quality for free is a benefit.
We do not track a direct replacement for it yet, which is part of the argument for it.
Recommended: DeepSeek at no cost is best used for maths and coding help on a budget and cheap API for high-volume apps, and it earns 4.5/5 from us.