Side-by-side comparison · AI Assistants & LLMs
Claude vs DeepSeek vs Grok
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.
Grok
3.7Pick it if: People who follow news, trends or public sentiment closely and want an assistant hooked into X.
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 | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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. | Elon Musk's AI assistant, plugged into what people are posting on X right now. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Free | Freemium |
| Starting price | $20/mo | Pay per use | $8/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 | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.6Winner | 3.8 | 3.7 |
| 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 | 4.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 5.0 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 3.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 3.5 | 4.0 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop app | Yes | No | No |
| Browser extension | Yes | No | No |
| 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 | No |
| 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 | No |
| Works in many languages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Capabilities score | 14/ 17 | 8/ 17 | 12/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Grok |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 Trying it and occasional questions. |
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. | Plus $8/mo X users who want a bit of Grok on the side. | |
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. | PremiumOur pick $30/mo Anyone who uses Grok most days. | |
Team From $20/seat/mo billed yearly Businesses with 2 to 150 people. | Super $100/mo Heavy users who want priority at busy times. | ||
Ultra $200/mo Power users running agents all day. | |||
Teams From $30/user/mo Businesses that want pooled usage and admin controls. | |||
| 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. | If you already pay for X Premium, you now get Grok in the same subscription, so start there. Premium at $30 is the real Grok plan. The $100 and $200 tiers are only worth it if you're generating video or running agents constantly. |
Key features
Pros and cons
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Grok |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Claude | DeepSeek | Grok |
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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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