Kimi vs DeepSeek (2026): Which Chinese AI Should You Use? - Fello AI

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Markdown Content: Kimi vs DeepSeek is now a clear trade between strength and price. On the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5, launched on 28 October 2026, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 46. DeepSeek’s best model, V4.1-Flash-1017, scores 32.5. But DeepSeek’s chat app is free, with no paid plan at all, and its API costs about a fifteenth of Kimi’s off-peak.

Both apps come from Chinese labs, both publish open model weights, and both look like the same kind of product from the outside. They are not. This guide compares the model each app actually runs and what Kimi’s plans give you against DeepSeek’s free app. Then it covers the API price at peak and off-peak hours, coding, where each company stores your chats, and the Mac. Prices come from Moonshot’s and DeepSeek’s own pages, scores from Artificial Analysis, and privacy terms from each company’s own policies and terms of service, all read on 28 October 2026.

Moonshot has promised the K3.1 Pro weights by 4 November 2026. Until then, only the previous flagship, Kimi K3, is downloadable, under Moonshot’s own Kimi K3 licence rather than a standard open licence. The app itself is built around agents: Agent Swarm, Deep Research, Slides, Docs, Sheets and website building all share one monthly credit pool.

| Measure (Artificial Analysis) | Kimi K3.1 Pro | DeepSeek V4.1-Flash-1017 | DeepSeek V4 Pro | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Intelligence Index v5 | 46.0 | 32.5 | 23.1 | | Terminal-Bench 4.0 (coding agents) | 67% | 34% | 14% | | FrontierCode 2.0 (private coding test) | 25.5% | 28.5% | 17.1% | | Omniscience Index (knowledge reliability) | 29.9 | 0.9 | -6.4 | | Output speed | 41 tokens/s | 173 tokens/s | Not compared | | Weights | Promised by 4 Nov | Public, MIT | Public, MIT |

DeepSeek’s app costs nothing, and Kimi’s useful features sit behind a subscription. Kimi’s prices come from Moonshot’s membership pricing page, in US dollars before tax. DeepSeek publishes no consumer pricing page, because there is nothing to buy.

Kimi’s free plan is a trial of the agent features, not the full product. It allows one agent task at a time, two projects and 500MB of project storage, and it does not include Kimi Code. Moonshot also has not said whether free users get Kimi K3.1 Pro. Its pricing page warns that “K3.1 Pro requests may queue or fail at launch”, so check the model picker before you assume you are on the flagship.

Kimi’s paid plans share one pool of credits across chat, agents, Slides, Kimi Code and the desktop agent, metered by tokens used. A long Deep Research job on Plus can eat into the credits you wanted for coding. The 1 million token chat window that Kimi advertises is listed only on Max and Ultra. Our Kimi pricing guide breaks down every tier.

> Strength: Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 46 on the Intelligence Index v5. DeepSeek V4.1-Flash-1017 scores 32.5, and DeepSeek’s bigger V4 Pro only 23.1. > App price: DeepSeek’s chat app is free and has no subscription. Kimi has a limited free plan and paid plans at $19, $39, $99 and $199 a month. > API price: Kimi K3.1 Pro costs $2 / $10 per million tokens. DeepSeek V4.1-Flash costs $0.15 / $0.60 off-peak and $0.30 / $1.20 at peak. > Privacy: DeepSeek stores your data in China. Kimi runs two services: kimi.com keeps data in China, and kimi.ai can store it outside your country. Neither has a settings switch for training, only opt-out requests. > Mac: Kimi has a desktop app for Apple silicon Macs. DeepSeek has no desktop chat app, only a desktop agent called DeepSeek Harness.

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