Move your team from ChatGPT to DeepSeek.
Each person gets a short interview, then a personalized step-by-step guide showing exactly where their saved work, prompts, and projects land in DeepSeek — and the few things that need a manual step, walked through. You send one invite; nobody becomes the help desk, and nothing in ChatGPT is changed or cancelled. Want to see where you’re paying for both first? Run the free audit.
Both products persist past conversations and surface them in a sidebar so users can resume prior threads. DeepSeek stores conversations server-side and syncs them across the web app and mobile apps when signed in; a search bar ('Search chat content') lets users find old conversations by content. ChatGPT offers the same sidebar history plus a richer persistent-memory layer: the model actively saves facts about the user across sessions (Settings → Personalization → Memory) and applies them to future responses, so prior context is injected automatically rather than requiring the user to reopen an old chat. To move a workflow from ChatGPT to DeepSeek: reopen the relevant past conversation in DeepSeek's sidebar, or use the search bar to locate it, and continue from there; note that any preferences or facts ChatGPT had saved in memory will need to be repeated in the new session as a system/context message or custom instructions cannot be migrated. To move from DeepSeek to ChatGPT: open or start a new ChatGPT conversation and add context via Custom Instructions (Settings → Personalization) or by summarizing your background in the first message; ChatGPT will begin building memory from that session onward.
- Warning: ChatGPT Memory auto-saves facts across all sessions and applies them to future chats without user action; DeepSeek has no equivalent persistent cross-session memory — users must re-establish context manually in each new conversation.
- Warning: ChatGPT memory is plan-gated (Limited on Free, Expanded on Plus/Pro); DeepSeek chat history is free with no documented limit.
- Warning: ChatGPT offers Temporary Chat mode to disable memory for a single session; DeepSeek has no equivalent opt-out for history within a session.
- Warning: ChatGPT conversation history and saved memories are included in the user's data export; DeepSeek does not document a comparable data-export mechanism for chat history.
Teams using ChatGPT's Code Interpreter via the OpenAI API (the code_interpreter tool in Assistants) for automated data analysis or computation can shift repetitive or batch workloads to the DeepSeek API for cost savings, since the DeepSeek API is OpenAI-SDK-compatible — change only the base URL (https://api.deepseek.com) and the API key, then use deepseek-v4-flash or deepseek-v4-pro as the model name. For analysis that requires actually executing code (e.g. charting, CSV aggregation, data cleaning), DeepSeek does not offer a sandboxed code execution tool on the API; you must handle execution in your own environment and pass results back as context. To move from DeepSeek API back to OpenAI: restore the original base URL and model name; add the code_interpreter tool to the Assistants configuration to regain sandboxed Python execution.
- Warning: ChatGPT Code Interpreter executes Python in a stateful Jupyter-like sandbox and returns downloadable output files; the DeepSeek API has no equivalent sandboxed execution tool — it only generates code, not runs it.
- Warning: The DeepSeek API supports tool/function calling on V4 models but NOT on the legacy deepseek-reasoner endpoint (thinking mode on the old endpoint is incompatible with function calling).
- Warning: DeepSeek API context caching is automatic and priced aggressively (cache-hit input at $0.0028/M tokens for V4-Flash vs $0.14/M cache-miss); OpenAI's Assistants pricing includes separate storage and per-session fees not present in the DeepSeek model.
- Warning: Legacy DeepSeek aliases deepseek-chat and deepseek-reasoner are scheduled for retirement on 2026-07-24; use deepseek-v4-flash and deepseek-v4-pro as named endpoints.
Both products offer a mode where the model spends extra time thinking through a complex query before answering. In ChatGPT, Deep Research is triggered via the '+' tools menu, the '/Deepresearch' shortcut, or the sidebar; it produces a multi-step agentic plan, searches the web autonomously for 5–30 minutes, and delivers a structured fullscreen report with a table of contents, citations, and downloadable Markdown/Word/PDF output. In DeepSeek, DeepThink is a simple per-message toggle (button in the chat input toolbar) that activates chain-of-thought reasoning and surfaces the thinking trace visibly before the final answer; it does not perform autonomous web browsing unless the separate Search toggle is also enabled. To migrate a complex research query from ChatGPT to DeepSeek: enable both DeepThink and Search toggles together (supported since the April 2026 V4 release), submit your query, and read the cited answer. To migrate back to ChatGPT: open Deep Research, review the auto-generated research plan, adjust focus or sources as needed, and wait for the full report.
- Warning: ChatGPT Deep Research browses autonomously for up to 30 minutes and produces a structured long-form report with its own table of contents; DeepThink in DeepSeek shows reasoning steps but does not autonomously browse — it answers in a single pass even with Search enabled.
- Warning: Deep Research is quota-gated on ChatGPT (Limited on Free/Go, included on Plus/Pro with a monthly allowance; exact numbers no longer published by OpenAI); DeepThink in DeepSeek is free with no documented per-message cap.
- Warning: ChatGPT Deep Research output is downloadable as Markdown, Word, or PDF; DeepSeek provides no export format for reasoning-mode answers beyond copy-paste.
- Deep Research can restrict or prioritize research to specific sites via Settings → Sites; DeepSeek's search toggle has no equivalent domain-filtering control.
Both products let users attach documents to a chat message and ask the model to summarize, extract, or analyze them. To move a workflow from ChatGPT to DeepSeek: use the paperclip/attachment icon in chat.deepseek.com or the mobile app to upload PDF, DOCX, TXT, CSV, or XLSX files, then type your question. To move from DeepSeek back to ChatGPT: drag-and-drop or use the attach control in the ChatGPT composer; ChatGPT additionally supports all common spreadsheet, presentation, and code-file formats, and with Code Interpreter enabled it will execute Python against the file rather than merely reading it. Neither product retains uploaded files across separate conversations (files are scoped to the session or project they were uploaded in), so re-upload is needed for each new session.
- Warning: ChatGPT publishes explicit limits (512 MB per file hard cap, 2M token cap for text documents, 50 MB for CSV/spreadsheets, 80 uploads per 3 hours on paid plans, 3 uploads/day on Free); DeepSeek does not officially publish file-size or count limits and third-party reports conflict widely.
- Warning: ChatGPT Code Interpreter actually executes Python against uploaded data (charting, computation); DeepSeek only reads and responds to text extracted from files — no sandboxed code execution is available in the consumer interface.
- Warning: DeepSeek free tier covers file upload with no plan gating; ChatGPT limits data analysis (Code Interpreter) to Go and above plans.
Both products offer an integrated web search toggle that retrieves live results and inlines citations with the AI response. To move from ChatGPT to DeepSeek: enable the globe-icon Search toggle in the DeepSeek chat input toolbar before submitting a query; DeepSeek will fetch real-time results and cite them inline the same way ChatGPT does. In ChatGPT, web search fires automatically when the model judges current data is needed, or explicitly via the '+' tools menu or '/search'; in DeepSeek, search is always opt-in per message via the toggle. If switching from DeepSeek back to ChatGPT, note that ChatGPT search is available on all plans (including Free) and fires automatically, so no manual toggle is required for most queries.
- Warning: ChatGPT search is available to logged-out users and all plans; DeepSeek search requires a free account login.
- Warning: ChatGPT's search layer is backed by Bing and partner providers and returns map/reservation cards on mobile; DeepSeek's search provider is not officially disclosed and results may differ in format and coverage.
- Warning: DeepSeek users report the Search toggle occasionally does not trigger a live fetch even when enabled — a known reliability gap as of 2026-06.
- Warning: ChatGPT allows a browser Chrome extension to set it as the default search engine; no equivalent exists for DeepSeek.