DeepSeek vs Grok

When to pick DeepSeek

• You want a capable chatbot for free — the web chat and mobile app have no plan tiers and no feature paywall, only peak-hour throttling.
• You are building on the API and cost matters: V4 Flash bills $0.14/M input tokens, a fraction of most frontier APIs, with a 1M-token context window included.
• You need self-hosting or data control — DeepSeek publishes open model weights you can run on your own infrastructure.

When to pick Grok

• You need up-to-the-minute answers: Grok reads live X and the open web without a separate browsing toggle, so it handles breaking news and trending topics.
• You want built-in media generation — Grok Imagine produces images and 6-second clips from the $10/month SuperGrok Lite plan.
• You already live on X and want an assistant wired into that ecosystem, with Connectors for Vercel, Canva, and Gamma.

Bottom line

DeepSeek and Grok are both freemium chatbots with a 1M-token context window and a dedicated reasoning mode, but they optimize for different things. DeepSeek is the cost leader: unlimited free web chat and an API from $0.14/M input tokens make it the pick for high-volume, high-context work, and its open weights allow self-hosting. Grok trades raw affordability for freshness and media — live X and web access, plus Grok Imagine image and short-video generation from $10/month. Choose DeepSeek to minimize spend on chat and API calls; choose Grok when real-time data or integrated image and video generation is the deciding factor.