# DeepSeek

DeepSeek is a model provider option for building AI agents. Strong reasoning and coding at a fraction of frontier pricing, with the weights published so you can move off the API later.

## Facts

- Layer: Model provider (What thinks)
- Vendor: DeepSeek AI (github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness)
- Licence: proprietary
- Pricing: usage based
- Self-hostable: no
- SDKs: ts, py
- Requires: `DEEPSEEK_API_KEY`
- Docs: https://api-docs.deepseek.com/
- Last verified: 2026-08-21

## When to reach for it

- You are choosing a model provider component — what thinks.
- You are happy to depend on a hosted service and would rather not operate this yourself.

## Worth knowing

OpenAI-compatible, so it is a base-URL swap. The open weights are the real hedge: if the hosted API is ever unacceptable, the same model runs on vLLM.

## Published benchmark scores

- SWE-bench Verified: 96.4% — leaderboard, SWE-bench Verified leaderboard, 2026-08-18. https://benchlm.ai/benchmarks/sweVerified

## Alternatives in the model provider layer

| Option | What it does | Licence | Self-host |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Anthropic | Claude Opus, Sonnet and Haiku. Strong tool use and long-horizon agentic work. | proprietary | no |
| OpenAI | GPT and o-series via the Responses API. | proprietary | no |
| Google Gemini | Gemini models with very long context and native multimodality. | proprietary | no |
| Amazon Bedrock | Frontier models inside your AWS account, with IAM and VPC boundaries. | proprietary | no |
| Google Vertex AI | Claude and Gemini under GCP billing, IAM and regional controls. | proprietary | no |
| OpenRouter | One API key, several hundred models, automatic failover. | proprietary | no |
| Hugging Face | One OpenAI-compatible endpoint routed across Groq, Together, Fireworks, Cerebras and Replicate — with the open-weight catalogue behind it. | proprietary | no |
| Venice AI | Hosted open-weight inference with no prompt logging or retention, plus an anonymising proxy in front of the frontier APIs. | proprietary | no |
| LiteLLM | Self-hosted proxy that speaks one API to 100+ providers, with keys and budgets. | open source | yes |
| Groq | Open-weight models at very low latency. | proprietary | no |
| Ollama | Open-weight models on your own machine. Nothing leaves the box. | open source | yes |
| vLLM | High-throughput open-weight serving on your own GPUs. | open source | yes |

Head to head:

- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-anthropic
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-openai
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-google-gemini
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-bedrock
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-vertex
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-openrouter
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-huggingface
- https://newagent.build/compare/deepseek-vs-venice

## Add it to a stack

```bash
curl -fsSL "https://newagent.build/api/stack?model=deepseek&format=sh" | sh
```

## Machine interfaces

- `GET https://newagent.build/api/registry` — every component as JSON
- `GET https://newagent.build/api/vendors` — vendors, with the repo and releases feed to watch
- `GET https://newagent.build/api/advise?q=<plain english>` — recommended stack for a description
- `GET https://newagent.build/api/stack?<layer>=<id>&format=sh|json|md|yml|agents|env` — a stack as files
- `GET https://newagent.build/llms.txt` — the whole registry in one fetch

Any page here also returns markdown if you send `Accept: text/markdown`.