Qwen suits developers and businesses that want open-weight models they can download, run on their own hardware and build on under the Apache 2.0 licence. DeepSeek suits people who want a ready-made assistant app and API without hosting anything. If you handle client data, read DeepSeek's privacy policy on where it stores personal data before you start.
Both are large language models that chat, reason and write code, and both have a web chat you can try straight away. That's where the overlap ends. Qwen is a whole family of models that Alibaba Cloud releases to the open-source community, so you can download one and run it yourself. DeepSeek's own pages lead with its assistant app and its API, so you use it as a hosted service. I've read the Qwen Team's release notes and DeepSeek's home page, app listing and privacy policy, and kept to what they say.
Qwen and DeepSeek compared row by row
| Qwen | DeepSeek | |
|---|---|---|
| Who's behind it | Alibaba Cloud's Qwen team | Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, per the App Store listing |
| What you get | A family of language and multimodal models, plus Qwen Chat on the web and a mobile app | An AI assistant on the web, mobile and desktop, plus an API platform |
| Licence | Open-weight models under Apache 2.0 | Used through DeepSeek's own app, web chat and API |
| Running it yourself | Local tools such as Ollama, LM Studio, MLX and llama.cpp | Hosted by DeepSeek |
| Ways to try it | Qwen Chat on the web, or 1M free AI tokens on Alibaba Cloud | The app is listed as free on the App Store |
| Thinking modes | Hybrid Thinking and Non-Thinking modes in Qwen3 | DeepThink and Search switches in the chat |
| Languages | 119 languages and dialects, per Alibaba Cloud | App available in English plus 71 more languages |
| Model range | Mixture-of-experts and dense models from 235B down to 0.6B, plus vision, speech and audio models | V4.1 Flash named on the home page, with web search and fetch in the API |
| Your data | Under your control when you run a model on your own machine | Stored in the People's Republic of China, per its privacy policy |
Qwen: a model family you can download
Alibaba Cloud describes Qwen as a series of large language models and multimodal models it provides to the open-source community, and the Qwen GitHub README is plain about the licence: all of its open-weight models are licensed under Apache 2.0. That licence is the reason businesses look at Qwen. You can host a model on your own server, fine-tune it and build it into a product.
The Qwen Team's Qwen3 release blog lists two mixture-of-experts models, Qwen3-235B-A22B and Qwen3-30B-A3B, and dense models at 32B, 14B, 8B, 4B, 1.7B and 0.6B. The small ones handle a 32K context and the larger ones 128K, while the later Qwen3-2507 models in the docs offer 256K long-context understanding, extensible to 1M. Alibaba Cloud's page also lists Model Context Protocol support and multimodal models such as Qwen-VL, Qwen-TTS, Qwen-Audio and Qwen3-Omni.
- For local use, the release blog names Ollama, LM Studio, MLX, llama.cpp and KTransformers. My guide to using LM Studio shows how that works on a laptop.
- Qwen Chat on the web and the mobile app let you try it without installing anything.
- Alibaba Cloud offers 1M free AI tokens to try its hosted Qwen models, including Qwen3-Max, which it calls its largest and most capable model to date.
If you're new to the family, my explainer on what Qwen is covers the basics.
DeepSeek: an assistant and API ready to go
DeepSeek's home page is built around its chat. You'll see DeepThink and Search switches above the message box, and links to its API Platform, Harness and Desktop. A notice on the page says DeepSeek V4.1 Flash has been updated and that the API now supports web search and fetch, which matters for developers building tools that need current information.
On the App Store, DeepSeek - AI Assistant is listed as free, with the developer shown as Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and the app available in English plus 71 more languages. The listing shows 12K ratings averaging 3.9. For a business owner the appeal is simple: nothing to install beyond an app, nothing to host, and an assistant that's ready the moment you sign in. If you're going that route, my DeepSeek prompts will save you some trial and error.
Where your prompts and personal data sit
This is the row buyers check, so I'll state it in DeepSeek's own words. Its privacy policy says it will "directly collect, process and store your Personal Data in People's Republic of China". It says it uses data to operate, provide, develop and improve its services, and that it may obtain publicly available personal data from online sources to train its models and provide services. That's a clear statement, not a scare story, and it matters if you paste in client briefs, contracts or customer emails.
Qwen gives you a different option. When you download an open-weight model and run it on your own hardware, your prompts stay on that machine rather than going to a hosted chat. If you use Qwen Chat or Alibaba Cloud's hosted models instead, you're using a hosted service, so read that service's terms in the same way.
Who should reach for which model
Qwen fits developers, technical founders and businesses that want to own their AI setup: running a model in-house for privacy, building a product on an Apache 2.0 licence, or picking a small model that runs on a laptop. The wide size range, from 0.6B up to 235B, means you can match the model to the hardware you have.
DeepSeek fits people who want a capable assistant now, without setting anything up, and developers who'd rather call an API than manage servers. It's a straightforward fit for research, drafting and coding help where the material isn't sensitive.
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Straight advice on Qwen or DeepSeek
Pick Qwen if you want control: an open-weight model you can run locally, host on your own server or build into a product. Pick DeepSeek if you want a hosted assistant or API you can use today, and the work you send it isn't confidential. I'd keep client names, contracts and customer data out of any hosted chat until you've read its privacy policy, and with a local Qwen model you don't have to make that call at all.
- Decide what you'll paste in before you choose the tool.
- If it's sensitive, try a small Qwen model locally first.
- If it isn't, try DeepSeek's app and API on a real task and compare the output.
Choosing an AI model gets far easier once you've decided where you're happy for your prompts to go. I run AI training and workshops for teams, and help businesses with AI enablement and workflow automation, so the busywork runs itself and people get time back. Most of that work is with SaaS marketing teams and small businesses. Here's how we can work together.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen open source?
Alibaba Cloud provides Qwen models to the open-source community, and the Qwen GitHub README says all of its open-weight models are licensed under Apache 2.0.
Is DeepSeek free?
The DeepSeek - AI Assistant app is listed as free on the App Store, and the web chat offers DeepThink and Search modes.
Where does DeepSeek store my data?
DeepSeek's privacy policy says it collects, processes and stores personal data in the People's Republic of China.
Can I run Qwen on my own computer?
Yes. The Qwen3 release blog names local tools such as Ollama, LM Studio, MLX and llama.cpp, and the small Qwen3 models go down to 0.6B.
Which one should a small business use?
Use DeepSeek's hosted app for quick, non-sensitive tasks. Use a self-hosted Qwen model when you want prompts and data to stay on your own hardware.
