Pick DeepSeek if
developers and power users who want a low-cost API or a free chat window with thinking + search.
Read the DeepSeek pageDeepSeek vs Qwen Chat
Our take
Pick DeepSeek if developers and power users who want a low-cost API or a free chat window with thinking + search. Pick Qwen Chat if anyone who wants a $0 Qwen chat in the browser. Skip DeepSeek if teams that cannot send prompts to a China-hosted API, or people who need a repo-aware IDE (Cursor). Skip Qwen Chat if teams that need a billed SLA seat (ChatGPT) or a local runtime you control (Ollama).
Best for
DeepSeek Cheap reasoning/coding tokens
Qwen Chat Talk to Qwen in the browser
Free plan
DeepSeek No free plan
Qwen Chat $0 · no public Plus/Pro seat on the chat pages we fetched
Lowest paid
DeepSeek Cache $0.003
Qwen Chat Not published by the vendor
Next step up
DeepSeek Cache $0.022
Qwen Chat
Runs where
DeepSeek Local or hosted
Qwen Chat Local or hosted
Watch out
DeepSeek Chat is login-gated
Qwen Chat Hosted chat is not the open-weight license
Last checked
DeepSeek 2026-10-19 · api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing
Qwen Chat 2026-10-21 · qwen.ai
Which one, then?
Pick Qwen Chat if
anyone who wants a $0 Qwen chat in the browser.
Read the Qwen Chat page