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Baseten vs DeepSeek
DeepSeek sells its own models cheaply from China. Baseten serves DeepSeek V4 with residency, HIPAA and custom deployments.
By The Subconscious Team · Updated
Baseten vs DeepSeek: key differences
DeepSeek is the source; Baseten is one of many hosts that run its weights. Straight from the lab, V4.1 Flash costs $0.30 in and $1.20 out at peak, with every off-peak hour at exactly half and cache hits at a few cents per million or less. Both come with 1M context and 384K max output. Open weights mean other hosts often price DeepSeek below that list. The catch is jurisdiction: data on DeepSeek's hosted API is stored in China, which ends the conversation for many enterprises. Baseten carries DeepSeek V4 in its catalog with HIPAA and data residency options, which gives regulated buyers a route to the same model family.
The two also differ in what else you get. Baseten posts the lowest measured time to first token and speaks both OpenAI and Anthropic API shapes, and it can serve a fine-tuned DeepSeek checkpoint through Truss. DeepSeek offers reasoning effort settings as a lever on output tokens, but it retires and reprices models often, so cost models need regular checks. Price-driven batch work timed for off-peak windows favors DeepSeek's own API.
What Baseten and DeepSeek do
Baseten
Baseten runs two products. Model APIs serve a curated set of about a dozen open models, including GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813, Kimi K3 and gpt-oss 120B, over endpoints that speak both the OpenAI Chat Completions shape and the Anthropic Messages shape. That dual compatibility means an existing OpenAI or Claude SDK, or a coding agent, points at Baseten with a base URL change. Dedicated deployments take any model you package with the open-source Truss CLI and bill per GPU minute, with an H100 at about $6.50 an hour.
Example models: GLM 5.3, gpt-oss 120B
Full Baseten profileDeepSeek
DeepSeek is the Chinese lab whose open-weight models reset price expectations for the whole market. Its main model is V4.1 Flash, with 1M context and 384K max output, which shipped September 10, 2026 with built-in image understanding at $0.30 in and $1.20 out at peak. DeepSeek is phasing out V4 Pro: since September 14, deepseek-v4-pro requests route to V4.1 Flash at Flash rates until V4.1 Pro launches. Cache hits cost a few cents per million or less, and the weights ship on Hugging Face under an MIT license.
Example models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash
Full DeepSeek profileShould you choose Baseten or DeepSeek?
Baseten
Choose Baseten for
- DeepSeek V4 where China data storage is a blocker
- Serving a custom fine-tune of open DeepSeek weights
- Latency-sensitive agents that need a fast first token
DeepSeek
Choose DeepSeek for
- Lowest first-party price on DeepSeek models
- Batch jobs scheduled into half-price off-peak hours
- Agents that reread long prefixes and benefit from cheap cache hits
Baseten vs DeepSeek at a glance
| Attribute | Baseten | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|
| Model access | Open weights, about a dozen curated | Open weights (MIT) |
| Flagship models | GLM 5.3, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Kimi K3, gpt-oss 120B | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash |
| Speed | 0.49s TTFT, lowest measured | ~209 tok/s on V4.1 Flash |
| Price | H100 about $6.50/hr dedicated | Off-peak hours at half price |
| Customization | Deploy any model with Truss | Open weights to fine-tune |
| Deployment | Model APIs, dedicated, self-host | First-party API, Hugging Face weights |
| Long context | Varies by model | 1M, 384K max output |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Baseten and DeepSeek?
DeepSeek sells its own models cheaply from China. Baseten serves DeepSeek V4 with residency, HIPAA and custom deployments.
When should I choose Baseten over DeepSeek?
DeepSeek V4 where China data storage is a blocker; Serving a custom fine-tune of open DeepSeek weights; Latency-sensitive agents that need a fast first token.
When should I choose DeepSeek over Baseten?
Lowest first-party price on DeepSeek models; Batch jobs scheduled into half-price off-peak hours; Agents that reread long prefixes and benefit from cheap cache hits.
Is Baseten or DeepSeek cheaper?
Baseten: H100 about $6.50/hr dedicated. DeepSeek: Off-peak hours at half price. The cheaper choice depends on the model and workload.
Which has more context, Baseten or DeepSeek?
Baseten: Varies by model. DeepSeek: 1M, 384K max output.
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Running long-horizon agents?
If your agents run past 200K tokens, compare both against Subconscious. Our inference stack treats a long-horizon trace as the primary workload, so speed, cost, and accuracy hold up deep into the trace.