C
CGeneral-purpose AI chat assistant for writing, research, coding and everyday tasks
Free, from $8/mo
DeepSeek vs Ollama
Pricing, features, platforms and who each one suits — side by side.
D
Choose DeepSeek if…
- you work on Web, iOS, Android
- you're in its core audience: developers, ai app builders
O
Choose Ollama if…
- you want a free plan to start with
- you want open source you can self-host or audit
- you work on macOS, Windows, Linux
- you're in its core audience: developers, ai engineers
Side by side
Feature DeepSeek Ollama
Pricing modelPaidFreemium
Starting price—$16.67/mo
Free plan
Free trial
API
Open source
Trains AI on your content—No
Data retention—Cloud prompts/responses processed transiently, not stored beyond request time
GitHub stars263.8K185K
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, APImacOS, Windows, Linux, API
CategoryAI ChatbotsLocal & Open Models
CompanyDeepSeekOllama
Based in——
Founded——
Part of——
Key features
D DeepSeek
- Web chat at chat.deepseek.com
- Mobile app and DeepSeek Harness desktop client
- OpenAI- and Anthropic-compatible API
- 1M-token context window, 384K max output
- Thinking mode with adjustable reasoning effort
- Web search and page fetch through the API
- Discounted pricing for cache hits and off-peak hours
O Ollama
- Run open models locally with unlimited usage
- Cloud-hosted open models with pay-as-you-go token pricing
- Off-peak discounted rates for some models
- Tool calling support on compatible cloud models
- Concurrent requests up to 10 on higher plans
- API keys with per-key cost budgets (Enterprise)
- Shared team billing and administration
- Usage alert email at 90% of monthly allowance
Plans and prices
From each vendor's site. Prices change — confirm before buying.
DeepSeek
deepseek-flash API$0.15/1M input tokens (cache miss, off-peak), $0.6/1M output tokens off-peak; peak rates are double
deepseek-v4-pro API$0.66/1M input tokens (cache miss, off-peak), $1.98/1M output tokens off-peak; peak rates are double
Search & Fetch$0.75 per 1,000 successful requests
Ollama
Free$0
Pro$20/mo or $200/yr ($16.67/mo billed annually)
Max$100/mo
Team (early access)$500/mo
EnterpriseCustom
Strengths and limitations
DeepSeek
- Off-peak API prices are 50% of peak prices
- 1M-token context on both API models
- Works with OpenAI and Anthropic API formats
- Available on web, mobile, and desktop
- Peak-hour API rates are twice the off-peak rates
- Web search and fetch through the API cost extra per request
- The site does not state free-tier terms or limits for the chat apps
Ollama
- Local model use is free and unlimited
- Prompt and response data is never logged or trained on
- Open source project on GitHub
- Published per-token prices for every cloud model
- Free cloud usage is limited to starter models unless you buy credits
- Unused monthly credits do not roll over
- Free plan allows only 1 concurrent cloud request
- Cloud hosting is primarily in the US
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