DeepSeek vs Qwen Studio
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
DeepSeek
Free AI chat assistant built on DeepSeek's openly released models
Free
Qwen Studio
Alibaba Cloud's chat app for the Qwen family of AI models
Free plan
Where they differ
- Only DeepSeek lists macOS and Windows apps.
- DeepSeek is open source, according to its own site.
- DeepSeek also covers AI agents.
In commonFree planWebiOSAndroidAI featuresChat assistantAI search
At a glance
| DeepSeek | Qwen Studio | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free | Not published |
| Free plan | The web chat and the iOS and Android apps are free, and the US App Store listing shows no in-app purchases. API usage is billed separately per token. | The mobile apps are listed as free with no in-app purchases. The web app names a Free tier with standard usage limits beside Go, Plus and Pro tiers; their prices could not be read. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | DeepSeek | Alibaba Cloud |
| Price read from | apps.apple.com | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
DeepSeek
- Free chat with no subscription tier to outgrow
- Developers who want low per-token API prices
- People who want models whose weights are openly released
Qwen Studio
- People who want to use Alibaba's Qwen models in a chat app
- Working with images, audio and video as well as text
- Free everyday chat, search and image generation on a phone
Worth knowing
DeepSeek
- There is no paid consumer plan. API access is billed separately, from $0.15 per 1M input tokens off-peak for the deepseek-flash model.
- The desktop download is DeepSeek Harness, a preview agent app for Apple-silicon Macs on macOS 13 or later and 64-bit Windows, not the chat app.
- According to Wikipedia, DeepSeek's compliance with Chinese government censorship policies and its data collection have drawn regulatory scrutiny in several countries.
Qwen Studio
- Prices for the Go, Plus and Pro tiers could not be confirmed: the pricing view on chat.qwen.ai did not load when read, and the store listings show no in-app purchases.
- The iOS app was not found on the US App Store when checked, though it is listed in other storefronts such as Canada and the UK.
- No Windows or Mac app is listed; the store listings cover iPhone, iPad and Android.
- The app stores list the app as Qwen Studio, while the website's page title still reads Qwen.
Key features
DeepSeek
- DeepThink and Search modes
- Two modes sit beside the chat box on DeepSeek's site: DeepThink, for reasoning through a question, and Search, for answers that draw on the web.
- Visual understanding
- DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash, released in September 2026, adds native visual understanding alongside text.
- Free mobile apps
- Official iOS and Android apps give free access to the assistant. The App Store listing covers iPhone and iPad.
- DeepSeek Harness
- A desktop agent app in public preview for organizing files, analyzing data, coding and research. It is MIT-licensed and extended through plugins such as scheduled tasks.
- Openly released models
- Wikipedia describes DeepSeek's models as open-weight and, since January 2025, released under free and open-source licenses. The web and mobile apps are proprietary.
- API platform
- The same models are available to developers through an API billed per token, with off-peak rates set at half the peak rates.
Qwen Studio
- Deep Thinking
- A reasoning mode for complex problems that draws on real-time internet data to work toward a logical, step-by-step answer.
- Search
- Finds answers and resources from across the web, using the context of the query to narrow the results.
- Multimodal understanding
- Processes text, images, audio and video together, for example reading data from a chart or pulling key points from an audio clip.
- Image generation and editing
- Creates images from a description for presentations, illustrations or concept designs, and the site also lists image editing.
- Voice and video chat
- The site lists voice and video chat with the assistant among its functions, alongside document processing, tool use and artifacts.
Plans
DeepSeek
Free$0
The chat assistant on the web, iOS and Android, running DeepSeek's latest flagship model.
Qwen Studio
Pricing could not be confirmed. See chat.qwen.ai.
