Side-by-side comparison · AI Assistants & LLMs
ChatGPT vs Claude vs DeepSeek
Everything that matters when choosing between them, in one place: our rating, what each can do, what they cost, and the trade-offs.
Comparing 3 tools, the maximum.
At a glance
ChatGPT
4.3Pick it if: Anyone who wants one general-purpose assistant that handles most everyday jobs.
Claude
4.6Pick it if: Anyone who writes, researches or makes decisions for a living, plus anyone curious about Claude Code.
DeepSeek
3.8Pick it if: Anyone who wants a strong reasoning assistant for free, and developers watching their API costs.
Claude scores highest overall, but DeepSeek gives you more for your money. Which one is right comes down to what you value most.
Overview
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | OpenAI's all-rounder: chat, images, voice, web search and agents in one app. | Anthropic's chat assistant, at its best on careful writing and long documents. | A free Chinese assistant that's strong at maths, logic and code. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Free |
| Starting price | $8/mo | $20/mo | Pay per use |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works with Claude Code | No | Yes | No |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.3 | 4.6Winner | 3.8 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 5.0 | 4.5 | 3.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.0 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.0 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.0 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop app | Yes | Yes | No |
| Browser extension | Yes | Yes | No |
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | Yes | No |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | Yes | No |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | No | Yes |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Understands images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Makes images | Yes | No | No |
| Makes video | Yes | No | No |
| Writes code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | Yes | No |
| Learns your brand or style | Yes | Yes | No |
| Works in many languages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Capabilities score | 16/ 17 | 14/ 17 | 8/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free Free Trying it out and everyday questions. | Free Free Trying it out and light daily use. | Chat appOur pick Free Anyone who wants a capable reasoning assistant at no cost. |
Go $8/mo Casual users who hit the free limits. | ProOur pick $20/mo, or $17/mo billed yearly Anyone who uses it most days. | API (deepseek-flash) Pay per use, from $0.15 per million input tokens Developers building cheap features into their own apps. | |
PlusOur pick $20/mo Anyone using it most days for work. | Max From $100/mo Heavy users and people living in Claude Code. | API (deepseek-v4-pro) Pay per use, from $0.66 per million input tokens Developers who want the stronger model. | |
Pro From $100/mo Heavy users and people living in Codex. | Team From $20/seat/mo billed yearly Businesses with 2 to 150 people. | ||
Business See website Teams from 2 people up. | |||
| Which plan to pick | The free plan is now good enough to use properly, so stay on it until the image, voice or research limits annoy you. Plus is the sensible upgrade. Only look at Pro if you run Codex or deep research all day, and read the current tier details first because they keep changing. | Start on Free to see if the writing suits you. Most people who stick with it move to Pro within a month; only go to Max if you hit the Pro limits every day or you're running Claude Code for hours at a time. | The app is free, so the only decision is whether the privacy trade-off is acceptable for what you're asking. If you need the model inside your own software, have a developer use the API or run the open model through a provider that keeps your data in Australia. |
Key features
Pros and cons
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | ChatGPT | Claude | DeepSeek |
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How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability. The "Visit" buttons may use affiliate links, which never affect a score.
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