Side-by-side comparison · AI Assistants & LLMs
Claude vs DeepSeek vs Google Gemini
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
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.
Google Gemini
4.2Pick it if: People whose work already runs on Gmail, Google Workspace or an Android phone.
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 | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | 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. | Google's assistant, built into Gmail, Docs, Drive and Android phones. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Free | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Pay per use | $4.99/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | No | No |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.6Winner | 3.8 | 4.2 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 3.5 | 4.0 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.5 | 3.0 | 4.5 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 5.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 4.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 3.5 | 4.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop app | Yes | No | No |
| Browser extension | Yes | No | Yes |
| API access | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | No | Yes |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | No | Yes |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | No | Yes |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | Yes | No |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Understands images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Makes images | No | No | Yes |
| Makes video | No | No | Yes |
| Writes code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Runs agents or automations | Yes | No | Yes |
| Learns your brand or style | Yes | No | Yes |
| Works in many languages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Capabilities score | 14/ 17 | 8/ 17 | 15/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free Free Trying it out and light daily use. | Chat appOur pick Free Anyone who wants a capable reasoning assistant at no cost. | Free Free Light use and seeing how it feels. |
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. | Google AI Plus $4.99/mo Casual users who want Gemini in Gmail and more storage. | |
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. | Google AI ProOur pick $19.99/mo Anyone who works in Google Workspace every day. | |
Team From $20/seat/mo billed yearly Businesses with 2 to 150 people. | Google AI Ultra From $99.99/mo Heavy creative and agent users. | ||
| Which plan to pick | 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. | Skip the free plan for anything serious now that it's Flash-Lite only. AI Pro is the one to buy: it's the cheapest way to get Gemini 4 Argon plus Gemini in Docs and Gmail, and the 5 TB of storage offsets a Google One bill. Ultra is for people generating video all day. |
Key features
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
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Pros and cons
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Google Gemini |
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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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