Side-by-side comparison · AI Assistants & LLMs
Claude vs Le Chat 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
Claude
4.6Pick it if: Anyone who writes, researches or makes decisions for a living, plus anyone curious about Claude Code.
Le Chat
4.1Pick it if: Teams that care where their data lives, and anyone after a capable assistant for less money.
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 | Claude | Le Chat | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Anthropic's chat assistant, at its best on careful writing and long documents. | Mistral's fast European assistant, with a usable free plan and a cheaper Pro plan. | A free Chinese assistant that's strong at maths, logic and code. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Free |
| Starting price | $20/mo | $14.99/mo | Pay per use |
| 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 | Le Chat | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.6Winner | 4.1 | 3.8 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 4.0 | 3.5 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 4.5 | 3.5 | 3.0 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 5.0 | 3.5 | 4.0 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.0 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 5.0 | 3.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Claude | Le Chat | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop app | Yes | Yes | No |
| Browser extension | Yes | No | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Understands images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Makes images | No | Yes | No |
| Makes video | No | 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 | 14/ 17 | 15/ 17 | 8/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Claude | Le Chat | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Free Free Trying it out and light daily use. | Free Free Everyday questions and a look at the Work and Code modes. | Chat appOur pick Free Anyone who wants a capable reasoning assistant at no cost. |
ProOur pick $20/mo, or $17/mo billed yearly Anyone who uses it most days. | ProOur pick $14.99/mo Anyone who wants a capable daily assistant for less. | API (deepseek-flash) Pay per use, from $0.15 per million input tokens Developers building cheap features into their own apps. | |
Max From $100/mo Heavy users and people living in Claude Code. | Team $24.99/user/mo Small teams that want shared billing and higher limits. | API (deepseek-v4-pro) Pay per use, from $0.66 per million input tokens Developers who want the stronger model. | |
Team From $20/seat/mo billed yearly Businesses with 2 to 150 people. | Enterprise Custom Organisations with compliance and custom needs. | ||
| 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 free plan is enough to see if the speed and tone suit you. Pro is good value at $14.99 and a sensible second assistant next to Claude. Students can get Pro for $5.99 a month for up to 12 months. | 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 | Claude | Le Chat | DeepSeek |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Claude | Le Chat | 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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