# DeepSeek Alternatives 2027: 11 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/deepseek/
Prices checked: 2026-11-13 (Zekai Price Ledger)

The best DeepSeek alternatives in 2027 are Claude (best overall, $20/mo), Gemini (best free plan: Limited usage, 5-hour refresh) and Ollama (best open source, MIT). DeepSeek: No subscription; API billed per token on api-docs.deepseek.com. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 8 more are compared below, including 3 with a free plan and 3 open source.

| Tool | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek (the tool being replaced) | — | No subscription; API billed per token on api-docs.deepseek.com. | Web and app chat; no limit stated on vendor site | — | — | 2026-11-13 | [pricing](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing) |
| Claude | Free plan + paid | $20/mo | Limited usage per 5-hour and weekly window | — | Long documents and careful writing | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://claude.ai) [pricing](https://claude.com/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/claude/) |
| Gemini | Free plan + paid | $4.99/mo | Free with a Google Account; limits refresh every 5 hours up to a weekly cap | — | Free chat inside a Google account | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://gemini.google.com) [pricing](https://gemini.google/subscriptions/) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/gemini/) |
| Mistral Le Chat | Free plan + paid | $14.99/mo | Limited messages and web searches; 5 scheduled tasks | — | Chat plan from a European lab | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://mistral.ai) [pricing](https://mistral.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/mistral-ai/) |
| Perplexity | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | 3 Pro searches a day, 1 research query a month | — | Cited answers from live web search | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://perplexity.ai) [pricing](https://www.perplexity.ai/help-center/en/articles/11187416-which-perplexity-subscription-plan-is-right-for-you) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/perplexity/) |
| Microsoft Copilot | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | Free baseline experience; usage limits apply | — | Copilot inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://copilot.microsoft.com) [pricing](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-copilot/for-individuals) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/microsoft-copilot/) |
| Qwen | Paid | Not checked | No free plan | — | Chatbot with image and video understanding | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://qwen.ai) [pricing](https://qwen.ai) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/qwen/) |
| Grok | Paid | Not checked | No free plan | — | Chat with live web and X answers | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://grok.com) [pricing](https://grok.com) |
| Ollama | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Running open models on your computer | 2026-11-11 | [pricing](https://ollama.com/pricing) [code](https://github.com/ollama/ollama) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/ollama/) |
| Open WebUI | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Open WebUI License (branding-preserving) | Self-hosted chat UI for Ollama | 2026-11-11 | [code](https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/open-webui/) |
| LibreChat | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Self-hosted multi-provider chat interface | 2026-11-11 | [code](https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/librechat/) |
| Jan | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Offline desktop chat with local models | 2026-11-11 | [code](https://github.com/janhq/jan) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/jan/) |

## How each alternative compares with DeepSeek

- **Claude** (Free plan + paid, $20/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Claude Pro costs $20 monthly or $17 a month on the annual plan, with a $100 Max tier; DeepSeek lists only per-token API rates and no chat plan. Switch if you want a fixed monthly chat subscription with a higher Max tier instead of metering tokens. Stay with DeepSeek if you build on an API billed per million tokens and want open weights you can download.
- **Gemini** (Free plan + paid, $4.99/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Gemini's free tier comes with any Google Account, and paid steps are sold as multiples of free usage: AI Plus 2x, AI Pro 4x, Ultra up to 20x of Pro. Switch if you already use a Google Account and want a cheap step up with clear usage multiples. Stay with DeepSeek if you prefer to call open models through an API priced per million tokens.
- **Mistral Le Chat** (Free plan + paid, $14.99/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Le Chat Pro is $14.99 a month before taxes with up to 6x the free messages and 15 GB of library storage; a Team plan is $24.99 per user. Switch if you want a flat sub-$20 plan with image generation and library storage included. Stay with DeepSeek if your usage is programmatic and you would rather pay only for tokens you consume.
- **Perplexity** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Perplexity's free Standard plan gives practically unlimited basic searches, 3 Pro searches a day and 1 research query a month; Education Pro is $10 a month. Switch if you want every answer returned with web sources rather than a model's own recall. Stay with DeepSeek if you want a general model with a 1M-token context and downloadable weights.
- **Microsoft Copilot** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Copilot offers a free baseline experience, and Microsoft 365 Premium adds Copilot in Word and Excel with the highest usage limits; usage cannot be shared. Switch if your documents live in Microsoft 365 and you want the assistant built into those apps. Stay with DeepSeek if you work outside Office and want a model you can call directly through an API.
- **Qwen** (Paid, Not checked): Qwen's site describes a chatbot with image and video understanding from Alibaba's Qwen model family; the home page lists no plan prices or free limits. Switch if you want image and video understanding from the same family that offers a chatbot. Stay with DeepSeek if you want published API rates per million tokens and a documented off-peak discount.
- **Grok** (Paid, Not checked): Grok describes itself as an assistant that chats, creates images, writes code and answers in real time from the web and X; private chats are not used for training. Switch if you want answers drawn from live web and X posts together with image creation. Stay with DeepSeek if you want to download open model weights and run them on your own servers.
- **Ollama** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Ollama runs open models on your hardware without limits and sells optional cloud access: Pro at $20 a month with $60 of usage credits, Max at $100. Switch if you want chats to stay on your own machine with no per-token bill. Stay with DeepSeek if your computer lacks the memory for large models and you would rather call a hosted API.
- **Open WebUI** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Open WebUI is a self-hosted chat interface that points at Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so DeepSeek's API can sit behind your own login screen. Switch if you want your own chat front end over DeepSeek's API or local models for a team. Stay with DeepSeek if you only need DeepSeek's hosted chat and do not want to run a server.
- **LibreChat** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): LibreChat is an MIT-licensed web app that connects to many providers at once with agents, MCP and search, so you pay each provider's own API rates. Switch if you want one self-hosted interface with user accounts across several model providers. Stay with DeepSeek if you do not want to maintain a database, a server or several API keys.
- **Jan** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Jan is an Apache-2.0 desktop app that runs offline, downloads models from Hugging Face and exposes a local OpenAI-compatible server on port 1337. Switch if you want an offline desktop app with a local API server and no Docker setup. Stay with DeepSeek if you want a hosted 1M-token context and web search without managing downloads.

## Open-source options in detail

- **Ollama** (https://github.com/ollama/ollama): Licence: MIT
- **Open WebUI** (https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui): Licence: Open WebUI License (branding-preserving)
- **LibreChat** (https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat): Licence: MIT
- **Jan** (https://github.com/janhq/jan): Licence: Apache-2.0

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to DeepSeek in 2027?
Claude is the best overall DeepSeek alternative on this page ($20/mo). For no cost, Gemini has a free plan (Free with a Google Account; limits refresh every 5 hours up to a weekly cap). To self-host, Ollama is open source (MIT).

### Is there a free version of DeepSeek?
Yes. DeepSeek has a free plan: Web and app chat; no limit stated on vendor site. Paid plans start at No subscription; API billed per token on api-docs.deepseek.com., checked on 13 Nov 2026.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to DeepSeek?
Yes. Ollama, Open WebUI, LibreChat, Jan are open source and free to self-host. Claude, Gemini, Mistral Le Chat, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot have a free plan with limits, shown in the table.

### How much do DeepSeek alternatives cost for a team of 5?
If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 13 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Gemini $24.95/mo, Mistral Le Chat $74.95/mo, Claude $100/mo. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size.

### Which is better, Claude or DeepSeek?
Claude Pro costs $20 monthly or $17 a month on the annual plan, with a $100 Max tier; DeepSeek lists only per-token API rates and no chat plan. Choose Claude if you want a fixed monthly chat subscription with a higher Max tier instead of metering tokens. Stay with DeepSeek if you build on an API billed per million tokens and want open weights you can download.

### Why are people leaving DeepSeek?
The documented reasons are: DeepSeek introduced peak and off-peak API pricing, with off-peak prices set at half of peak-hour prices, effective 16 August 2026 (13 Aug 2026); With the V4.1-Flash release, the previous V4 Flash and V4 Flash Vision Exp models were retired and API prices were reduced (10 Sep 2026). Each is sourced in the section above.

### What is better than DeepSeek?
It depends on the job. Claude suits long documents and careful writing, Gemini suits Google account users, and Perplexity returns cited web answers. For open weights you run yourself, Ollama and Jan are the local options.

### Can I run DeepSeek locally?
DeepSeek states its models are open-source and available on Hugging Face and ModelScope. Local runtimes such as Ollama, Jan and Open WebUI can serve open models on your own computer, subject to your memory and GPU.

## Related on Zekai

- [Claude alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/claude/)
- [Gemini alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/gemini/)
- [Perplexity alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/perplexity/)
- [Microsoft Copilot alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/microsoft-copilot/)
- [Qwen alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/qwen/)
- [Open WebUI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/open-webui/)
- [ChatGPT alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/chatgpt/)
- [Genspark alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/genspark/)
- [Poe alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/poe/)
- [AI for Software Development](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-software-development-code-automation/)

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Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/deepseek/