DeepSeek vs Perplexity

Detailed comparison of DeepSeek and Perplexity. See which tool is best for your specific needs.

Open-weight frontier models at a fraction of closed-model pricing

Starting atFree

Answer engine that routes across frontier models with cited sources

Starting atFree

Feature	DeepSeek	Perplexity
Starting Price	Free	Free
Free Tier
Context Window	1M tokens	Varies by routed model
Vision Input
Reasoning Mode
Open Weights
API Access
Web Search
API Access
Top Pros	V4 Flash at $0.14 / 1M input is roughly 35x cheaper than the closed flagships MIT-licensed open weights allow self-hosting with no commercial restrictions 1M-token context at open-weight pricing	Inline citations on every answer, which general assistants still do inconsistently Model choice across OpenAI, Anthropic and Google on one subscription Best-in-class for search-grounded research tasks
Main Cons	No vision input on the V4 line China-based hosting raises data-residency questions for regulated buyers Thinner enterprise support and SLA story than US vendors	You are paying a margin on top of the underlying model providers Weaker than the native assistants at long-form generation and coding Model routing is opaque — you don't always know what answered
Best For	cost sensitiveself hostingdevelopershigh volume	researchcitationssearchfact checking

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