DeepSeek Chat
DeepSeekHosted consumer chat product from DeepSeek, at chat.deepseek.com and in iOS and Android apps, fronting the company's own model family with long-context handling, file reading and agent capabilities. It runs as a free hosted service, distinct from the model weights of the same name.
The underlying DeepSeek models are scored separately under base_pretrained; this record covers the chat product.
Openness
1 high confidence- client
- proprietary(no public source for chat.deepseek.com app)
- backend
- hosted-SaaS
- note
- underlying models open(MIT) but the chat application/service is closed
- source
- closed(hosted chat service at chat.deepseek.com
The DeepSeek chat surface is a proprietary hosted service, and the openness of the V3/V4 weights it serves is scored separately at the model layer. It is the closed counterpart to the open chat interfaces in this category.
- https://cdn.deepseek.com/policies/en-US/deepseek-terms-of-use.html recorded 2026-09-29
DeepSeek Terms of Use for the Services prohibit "attempting to discover the source code, models, algorithms, and system source code or underlying components of the software in any way"; the terms grant no source release or self-hosting right.
- https://www.deepseek.com/en/ recorded 2026-09-29
Home page for the hosted chat and API products: "The official version of DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash has been released" and buttons "Chat with DeepSeek" and "Use API Platform". Searched the body for self-host, on-prem, open source and license: none, and the Research links point to model releases, not the chat application.
Adoption
5 medium confidenceAn industry tracker's report places DeepSeek's chat app among the most-used AI apps in the Chinese market, well above the mass-market threshold. The reading comes from press coverage of that report rather than the report itself, and usage is concentrated in China, which keeps confidence medium.
- https://finance.biggo.com/news/372811e2-28f1-49c7-9f53-fa56879cde3b recorded 2026-09-29
QuestMobile 2026 H1 report coverage: "DeepSeek ranked third with 130 million MAUs, securing its position primarily through technical reputation and organic growth".
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deepseek.chat&hl=en_US recorded 2026-09-29
Google Play listing for the official DeepSeek Android app, described as "official AI assistant for free!", showing a "50M+" Downloads badge.
Capability
3 medium confidenceDeepSeek Chat pairs a strong underlying model with file upload, long-context handling and agent capabilities, but it works with only its own model family and offers no enterprise multi-user tier or grounding over corporate data. That narrows it against frontier multi-model chat interfaces, so it does not define the category frontier.
- https://www.deepseek.com/en/ recorded 2026-08-13
Chat product features: file reading, long-context, V4 agent capabilities, single-vendor model
Verified 2026-09-29, except some scores, still awaiting re-confirmation