Key takeaways

DeepSeek is a frequent first China LLM API for overseas teams because of OpenAI-compatible endpoints and competitive reasoning pricing. Official base URL: https://api.deepseek.com. Always copy model names from platform.deepseek.com docs—aliases change. Swift Horse is not DeepSeek; verify billing and limits on the vendor site.

1-hour overseas POC

Register → create API key → set base_url + key in OpenAI SDK → run chat + stream=true → optional tool-call smoke test → log latency from your user region → estimate monthly cost (/en/articles/china-llm-api-pricing-2026). For multi-vendor setup see /en/articles/access-china-llm-api-overseas.

Common overseas pitfalls

Wrong mirror sites; using deprecated model IDs; ignoring output-token cost on reasoning models; skipping tool-call tests for agents (/en/articles/china-llm-agent-tool-calling-2026).

Compare with other Chinese LLMs

DeepSeek vs Qwen: /en/articles/deepseek-vs-qwen-selection-guide. Full matrix: /en/articles/top-chinese-ai-models-2026.

FAQ

What is the DeepSeek API base URL?

https://api.deepseek.com for OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions—confirm on official docs before production.

Can I use DeepSeek from the US or EU?

Many teams register via platform.deepseek.com; evaluate latency and compliance for your workload—see compliance guide on this site.

DeepSeek vs ChatGPT for coding?

Public benchmarks often favor DeepSeek on coding value; run your repo tasks in a POC—see DeepSeek model profile on /en/models.

Is this official DeepSeek documentation?

No—independent Swift Horse quickstart. Always defer to platform.deepseek.com for authoritative specs.