Practical guideFirst-party service
Official hosted products
DeepSeek Chat is the browser-based assistant. It combines model access with account, file, search, and interface features that can change separately from the API.
Product map
Understand the DeepSeek product ecosystem
Separate first-party services from models, downloadable files, third-party integrations, and historical releases before you choose an access route.
Quick read
The distinction that prevents most confusion
A chat interface, an API model ID, a research release, and a third-party hosted checkpoint are different products with different costs and responsibilities.
Current first-party API IDs in the supplied register: deepseek-v4-flash deepseek-v4-pro
Seven distinct surfaces
Products, models, and access routes
Verify before use
Current models
Current first-party API identifiers are distinct from research release names, historical aliases, and third-party runtime tags.
Metered developer access
API platform
The first-party developer platform provides API keys, usage billing, OpenAI-compatible requests, JSON output, and documented tool calling.
Official distribution links
Mobile access
DeepSeek publishes an official mobile download destination for supported iOS and Android stores. Publisher checks matter because similar names can be misleading.
Self-managed
Local and open-weight files
Published model weights can be downloaded and run with compatible tools, subject to the exact licence, hardware, security, and maintenance requirements.
Separate provider
Third-party integrations
A third party may host a DeepSeek model or connect it to tools. Its pricing, retention, support, and model identity are not automatically DeepSeek’s.
Not necessarily a current API ID
Historical and experimental releases
R1, V3, Coder, and VL releases remain important for research and local workflows, but release names should not be copied into production API calls without verification.
Official destination
Verify access at the source
This publication explains the landscape but does not provide accounts, subscriptions, downloads, or API keys.