DeepSeek
Free tierFrontier AI models with world-class reasoning — free to chat, open to build on
Free tier available·All audiences·Powered by DeepSeek·API available·Open source
Key strengths
World-class reasoning performance with DeepSeek-R1Open-source models available for self-hosting and fine-tuningLow-cost API access with OpenAI-compatible endpointsStrong coding capabilities via DeepSeek-Coder seriesMultimodal support including vision-language models (DeepSeek-VL)
Free tier + paid plans
Hangzhou, China
Founded 2023
Self-hostable
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DeepSeek API — Developer Quick Start
DeepSeek's API is OpenAI SDK-compatible, so integration is straightforward if you've used OpenAI before.
Base URL
https://api.deepseek.com/v1
Authentication
Pass your API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header, or use it directly with the OpenAI SDK:
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
api_key="YOUR_DEEPSEEK_API_KEY",
base_url="https://api.deepseek.com/v1"
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="deepseek-chat", # or "deepseek-reasoner" for R1
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain MoE architecture."}]
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)
Key Models & Identifiers
| Model | API ID | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-V3/V4 | deepseek-chat | General chat, writing, code |
| DeepSeek-R1 | deepseek-reasoner | Step-by-step reasoning, math |
| DeepSeek-Coder V2 | deepseek-coder | Code generation & completion |
Self-Hosting
Model weights are available on Hugging Face. Deploy locally using transformers, vLLM, or llama.cpp for privacy-sensitive or high-throughput workloads. Refer to the open platform docs for full parameter references and rate limits.