Short answer, then the detail.
For Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and translation, DeepSeek is the more direct fit. For Professional developers writing code daily; Team code review, GitHub Copilot gets there with less fighting.
Both have free tiers, so cost only separates them once you hit the limits. Context limits aren't published for both, so treat this as untested until you hit the ceiling yourself.
| Dimension | DeepSeek | GitHub Copilot |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing | Web and app free; API list price deepseek-flash CNY 1 / 2 per million input tokens (off-peak / peak) and CNY 4 / 8 output; deepseek-v4-pro CNY 4.5 / 9 input and CNY 13.5 / 27 output (checked 2026-10-29) | Free $0; Pro $10/mo; Pro+ $39/mo; Max $100/mo; Business $19/seat/mo; Enterprise $39/seat/mo (checked 2026-10-29) |
| Context window | 1M tokens of context; up to 384K tokens of output (checked 2026-10-29) | not published |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | Web, IDE extensions (VS Code and others), CLI, iOS, Android |
| Best for | Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and translation; Private or on-premise deployment | Professional developers writing code daily; Team code review; Enterprise release pipelines |
| Availability | Directly reachable inside mainland China with no proxy, and a China edition exists (checked 2026-10-29). | Needs a GitHub account, and github.com is unreliable from mainland China without a proxy; there is no China edition (checked 2026-10-29). |
Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and translation; Private or on-premise deployment. Its strongest point: Publishes open weights you can download and self-host. Watch out for: Almost no multimodal support for images or audio.
Professional developers writing code daily; Team code review; Enterprise release pipelines. Its strongest point: Completion and edits happen in the editor, with no window switching. Watch out for: Usage is metered in AI Credits, which is hard to forecast.
Running both is not wasteful here: one earns its keep on retrieval and tool use, the other on long text you intend to keep.
DeepSeek if you want Budget-sensitive developers. GitHub Copilot if Professional developers writing code daily. Neither has a learning curve worth worrying about past the first day.
Yes — both have free tiers, and the pair covers more ground than either alone.
Context limits aren't published for both, so treat this as untested until you hit the ceiling yourself.