ChatGPT is the better app overall, scoring 9.0 to 7.4. ChatGPT wins on 4 of the 5 scores, DeepSeek on 1.
People who want one AI assistant for writing, research, images and everyday questions
Students and developers who want strong reasoning help without paying
Score by score
The details
| Feature | ChatGPT | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|
| Category | AI Assistants | AI Assistants |
| Category rank | #1 of 8 | #8 of 8 |
| Developer | OpenAI | DeepSeek |
| Pricing | Free + paid plans | Free |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mac | ✓ | — |
| Windows | ✓ | — |
| Web | ✓ | ✓ |
Strengths and weaknesses
ChatGPT
- Widest feature set of any AI assistant
- Polished apps on phone, desktop and web
- Strong at writing, coding and analysis in one place
- Top models and higher limits require a paid plan
- Chats train models by default unless you turn it off
ChatGPT is the most complete AI assistant you can get. It writes, codes, searches the web, talks back in voice mode, generates images and can run multi-step tasks in agent mode. Memory and projects keep context across chats. The catch is that the best models and higher limits sit behind paid plans, and chats are used for training unless you opt out. Start here if you want one assistant for nearly everything.
Full ChatGPT review
DeepSeek
- Strong reasoning and coding help at no cost
- Shows its reasoning process in DeepThink mode
- Open-weight models you can run yourself
- Data is stored on servers in China
- Basic app with no voice mode or image creation
DeepSeek offers capable reasoning and coding help completely free, and its models are released as open weights. DeepThink mode shows its reasoning step by step, and web search is built in. The app is basic, though, with no voice mode or image generation, and servers can be busy at peak times. Its privacy policy says data is stored in China, and several governments have restricted its use on official devices.
Full DeepSeek review
