If you only read one line: pick by workload, not by benchmark charts.
For Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and translation, DeepSeek is the more direct fit. For Chinese office documents and tables; Teams already running on Alibaba Cloud, Qwen gets there with less fighting.
Both have free tiers, so cost only separates them once you hit the limits. They're in the same context range (1M tokens of context; up to 384K tokens of output (checked 2026-10-29)), so document size won't be what decides it.
| Dimension | DeepSeek | Qwen |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | Qianwen app free; API qwen3.8-max CNY 12 input and CNY 36 output per million tokens (Beijing region; CNY 1.5 on cache hits) (checked 2026-10-29) |
| Context window | 1M tokens of context; up to 384K tokens of output (checked 2026-10-29) | 1,000,000 tokens (qwen3.8-max; 991,808 max input, 131,072 max output) (checked 2026-10-29) |
| Platforms | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, HarmonyOS PC |
| Best for | Budget-sensitive developers; Chinese writing and translation; Private or on-premise deployment | Chinese office documents and tables; Teams already running on Alibaba Cloud; Developers calling a China-hosted model |
| Availability | Directly reachable inside mainland China with no proxy, and a China edition exists (checked 2026-10-29). | Directly reachable in mainland China with no proxy, and a China edition exists (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.
Chinese office documents and tables; Teams already running on Alibaba Cloud; Developers calling a China-hosted model. Its strongest point: Balances Chinese and English quality on the same model. Watch out for: Web and app do not offer the same features.
Most people I know keep both tabs open — one for finding things, one for producing the final draft — and stop paying for whichever they touch last.
DeepSeek if you want Budget-sensitive developers. Qwen if Chinese office documents and tables. 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.
They're in the same context range (1M tokens of context; up to 384K tokens of output (checked 2026-10-29)), so document size won't be what decides it.