DeepSeek vs Perplexity

DeepSeek is an AI assistant for chatting with AI models, available on the web and through official iOS and Android apps. The free plan is listed at free and includes the assistant and official mobile apps. DeepSeek also offers an API, with deepseek-flash identified as the model name to use; legacy deepseek-v4-flash names route to V4.1-Flash. The API follows a format compatible with OpenAI and Anthropic APIs, and their SDKs can be used by changing configuration. It supports external tool calls, with a strict mode that checks tool schemas against supported JSON Schema specifications. DeepSeek says V4.1-Flash is live on the API with native multimodal support. Its desktop Harness can work in the background, edit local files, and handle long, complex tasks; downloads are listed for macOS (Apple silicon, macOS 13 or later) and Windows. DeepSeek is headquartered in Hangzhou, China. Its privacy policy says personal data is processed and stored in China, and advises users not to submit sensitive personal data.

Perplexity is an answer engine that searches the open web and returns answers with inline citations. It can search files and connected apps alongside the web, and can select among more than 20 leading models, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Nemotron. Deep Research conducts searches across many sources and produces a report. Access is available on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with an API also listed. The free plan has limited weekly use for simple questions. Pro costs $20 a month and adds Computer, premium data sources, web search, files, apps, model council, and model selection. Max costs $200 a month and offers higher limits for Deep Research, resource generation, file uploads, and monthly video creation. Enterprise Pro is $40 a month per seat; Enterprise Max is $325 a month per seat. Enterprise plans bill by seat, and API use requires separate credits. Perplexity lists more than 400 app connectors.