Doubao vs DeepSeek vs Tongyi Qianwen actual test comparison, how to choose among three domestic free AI assistants in 2026

Doubao vs DeepSeek vs Tongyi Qianwen Actual test comparison, how to choose among three domestic free AI assistants in 2026

Entering 2026, domestic large models have entered a competitive landscape where a hundred flowers are blooming from the early catching-up stage. If you are just looking for a free AI assistant that you can use every day, and you don’t need to study the underlying architecture, and you don’t plan to pay for a Krypton gold subscription, then the choices before ordinary users are actually very concentrated, basically Doubao, DeepSeek and Tongyi Qianwen. They are respectively backed by Bytedance, Deep Search and Alibaba, and each has its own focus on resources, ecology, and technical routes.

I used the same batch of questions and ran a full round on three products, from Chinese conversation, writing, programming to mathematical reasoning, trying to give a real experience comparison that is not so "product propaganda". The following content will not involve specific version numbers and benchmark scores, because the model iteration speed is too fast and the numbers can easily expire. The industry generally believes that the actual use experience is more worthy of reference.

Positioning differences among the three products

Doubao is an AI assistant owned by ByteDance, and its product polishing obviously follows the popular route. The interface is friendly, the novice guidance is clear, there are mobile apps and web versions, and it has a certain connection with the Douyin ecosystem. For example, you can directly call some Doubao capabilities in Douyin. Its positioning is closer to an all-round assistant for ordinary consumers, and the Chinese experience is very smooth.

DeepSeek is a deep search team from Hangzhou and is considered a representative of the "technical school" in the domestic AI circle. Its reasoning model has a good reputation in the industry. Judging from actual experience, it often provides a more solid thinking process when doing complex logic problems and mathematical problems. Its API price is also affordable, so many developers and heavy users will integrate DeepSeek into their workflow.

Tongyi Qianwen is produced by Alibaba, and its biggest feature is that it has both open source versions and closed source services, which gives it greater flexibility in the developer ecosystem. For daily use, Tongyi Qianwen's web version is fully functional and integrates Alibaba's own DingTalk, Quark and other products. If you are already in Alibaba's tool chain, the threshold for use is very low.

Although the three companies are all called "AI assistants", their target users are actually different, which is also the source of the subsequent differences in experience.

Chinese conversation experience comparison

Chinese dialogue is the dimension where it is easiest for domestic AI to widen the gap, and it is also easiest to close the gap. The performance of the three companies in regular chats and questions and answers has been very mature, and it is basically impossible to see who is the clear winner. But as long as the topic is a little more specific, the differences will show up.

Doubao's tone is most like an assistant who "understands China's Internet." It will use more colloquial and down-to-earth expressions, and is suitable for writing copywriting for social platforms and writing grassroots content in the style of Xiaohongshu. Ask it a localized question like "What's the best deal on Double Eleven?" and the answer is obviously more granular than the other two.

DeepSeek's answer style is formal and logically organized, but the colloquial expression is slightly weak. If you ask it a more academic or technical Chinese question, the answer it gives will make you think "this guy is really thinking." But when writing a little emotional copy like Xiaohongshu, it seems a little stiff.

Tongyi Qianwen is in the middle position, quite satisfactory. It won't go wrong in any situation, but it won't make your eyes shine. His knowledge of ancient Chinese poetry and traditional culture is pretty good. When asked about some unpopular idioms and allusions, his answers are relatively stable.

Writing ability test

I used three test tasks for comparison: one is to write a business thank you email, the other is to write a copy of Xiaohongshu Zhongcao, and the third is to write a paper abstract.

In terms of business emails, Tongyi Qianwen and Doubao perform similarly, with appropriate tone and complete structure. DeepSeek occasionally becomes overly written and needs to be tweaked. All three companies can provide usable drafts in one generation, with little difference.

When it comes to Xiaohongshu’s copywriting, Doubao clearly has the upper hand. It seems to be very familiar with Xiaohongshu's language ecology of "sisters rush", "juejuezi", and "unlimited repurchase", and emojis are used naturally. What DeepSeek writes is more like "traditional marketing copy" and has the flavor of advertising at the beginning of the new century. Tongyi Qianwen is in between the two, it can be used, but it needs to be modified to be fully in place.

For academic tasks such as paper abstracts, DeepSeek has the most stable performance. It will actively sort out the logical chain of research background, methods, and conclusions, use terminology accurately, and is close to the mainstream closed-source level. Doubao and Tongyi Qianwen can also be written, but occasionally the method part is not specific enough.

Programming ability comparison

Programming is the easiest indicator for developers to compare AI assistants. All three can write regular Python, JavaScript, and Java code, and they can basically handle LeetCode's medium-difficulty questions with no problem.

DeepSeek's code model has a good reputation in the industry. Judging from actual experience, the code comments it writes will be relatively complete, and it will proactively give multiple implementation ideas when faced with complex logic. If you connect it to an IDE and write code every day, DeepSeek is a more solid option.

Doubao's coding capabilities are sufficient for daily use, and it can handle simple scripts, crawlers, and data cleaning. But when encountering deeper algorithm questions or large-scale system design, its answer will feel a bit like "breadth is better than depth".

Tongyi Qianwen relies on Alibaba's code accumulation and often provides more "industrial style" code in Java and enterprise-level development scenarios, which complies with common engineering specifications. If your job is in scenarios such as back-end services and microservices, Tongyi Qianwen's code will make you feel more familiar.

Mathematical Reasoning and Logic Questions

I prepared three types of questions: one is derivative and probability questions in high school mathematics, the other is logical reasoning questions (the classic "knights and liars" type), and the third is slightly more open applied mathematics questions.

DeepSeek has obvious advantages in this type of tasks. Its reasoning model will show the complete thinking process. You can see how it breaks down the problem, verifies the intermediate steps, and eliminates wrong paths. Even if there are problems with the final answer, the process has reference value.

The conventional models of Doubao and Tongyi Qianwen have no problem with simple questions, but when encountering questions that require multi-step reasoning, they will occasionally skip steps or directly give an answer that looks right but is actually wrong. For this type of task, the industry generally believes that inference models are a more suitable choice.

If you are a middle school student, college student, or preparing for postgraduate entrance examinations or various competitions, DeepSeek's experience on this track is more solid.

Internet search and real-time information

All three now support online search, which has become standard. But there are differences in network quality.

Doubao's Internet search is highly integrated. It can ask real-time questions such as "Today's weather in Beijing" and "Yesterday's news about a certain company." The response is fast, the information sources are relatively rich, and the citing sources are automatically listed, which looks very formal.

Tongyi Qianwen's online search is also very complete, and because it is connected to Quark's search capabilities, it performs well on certain vertical information, such as academic materials, e-commerce price comparisons, etc.

DeepSeek's networking function exists, but it is relatively not its main direction. If your need is to follow news and check the latest policies on a daily basis, Doubao and Tongyi Qianwen are more convenient.

Mobile and PC coverage

Doubao’s mobile app experience is the most complete among the three. It has complete iOS and Android clients. Voice dialogue, image recognition, and document upload are all done smoothly. It is suitable for asking questions on your mobile phone while commuting.

Tongyi Qianwen also has an independent app, and the experience is good. It can be accessed in another form through DingTalk and Quark, which covers multiple entrances.

DeepSeek's official mobile app was launched later, and the experience is still being polished. But its web version has complete functions. If you mainly use PC, DeepSeek's web version is completely sufficient, and the convenience of API access is very friendly to developers.

How to use Save AI to archive conversations among three companies

After using these three AI companies for a period of time, you will find a very real problem: good conversations are scattered across various platforms, making searching extremely inconvenient. My own solution was to use a Chrome extension Save AI, export the conversations of Doubao, DeepSeek, and Tongyi Qianwen into PDF, Word, Markdown or long pictures, and save them locally. It supports more than ten mainstream AI sites. Data is processed locally first and is not uploaded to the cloud. Users who are sensitive to privacy can use it with confidence.

The actual usage is very simple: after chatting with the three web versions, just click the extension icon and select the format you want. The exported Markdown can be directly put into Obsidian or your own note-taking system. The PDF is suitable for saving to colleagues for review, and the long image is more suitable for sharing on Moments. In this way, three different products can be unified in archiving, making migration and backtracking much easier.

Which one to choose, recommended by user type

For ordinary daily users, Doubao is recommended first. It has the highest overall score in Chinese dialogue, localized content, and app experience. There is no threshold for novices to get started, and they can give a decent answer to anything they ask.

For students and in-depth users of science and engineering, DeepSeek is a more worthy option for long-term use. Its reasoning ability is solid and suitable for answering questions, writing papers, and doing data analysis. If you are a programmer, the API price is affordable for your wallet.

For enterprise users and deep users of the Alibaba ecosystem, Tongyi Qianwen will be a more convenient choice. It is highly integrated with DingTalk and Quark, which can save a lot of switching costs in corporate office scenarios. The open source version is also attractive to teams building their own AI applications.

If you don't mind the trouble, my suggestion is to register an account with all three companies and switch between them daily according to the scene. All three are available for free (see the official public page for the paid version), so there is no need to choose one of the two. After archiving conversations with Save AI, you will develop your own preferences over time.

FAQ

Do all three companies need to register an account?

Yes, Doubao, DeepSeek, and Tongyi Qianwen all need to register an account to use full functions. The registration process is very simple and can basically be completed with a mobile phone number verification code. All three support third-party logins such as WeChat and Alipay, and the threshold is not high. There will be a free quota after registration, and the daily usage of ordinary users will basically not touch the upper limit. If you are a heavy user, you can pay attention to each company's membership or API packages. See the official public page for details.

Which one has the best understanding of local content such as ancient Chinese poetry?

Judging from actual experience, the three companies have done well in ancient Chinese poetry, idioms and allusions, and traditional culture. If you have to sort, Tongyi Qianwen and Doubao are slightly more stable in this area, and DeepSeek's answer is more academic analysis. When asked perceptual questions like "the artistic conception of this poem", Doubao gives a more vivid explanation; when asked about textual research questions like "where does this allusion come from and how is it used?" Tongyi Qianwen's answers are more solid. If you are a literature lover, you can try the same question from all three, and you will be able to feel the difference in effects.

Which one is more suitable for student parties?

The needs of student parties are generally to do homework, look up information, help understand concepts, and do math problems. Taken together, DeepSeek has more advantages in mathematics and reasoning tasks and is suitable for science and engineering students; Doubao is more convenient for writing tasks and is suitable for liberal arts and students who need to write reports; Tongyi Qianwen is highly comprehensive and is very stable as a daily learning assistant. If you are on a tight budget, all three are free, and you can register for them all and switch according to specific job types.

How big is the gap between domestic AI and ChatGPT?

It is generally believed in the industry that the domestically produced large head models in 2026 will be close to or even exceed the experience of ChatGPT in Chinese scenarios. There is still a gap in English scenarios and some complex reasoning tasks, but the gap is much smaller than a year or two ago. The specific difference depends on which type of task you are using. For daily conversations, writing, and Chinese data collection, domestic AI is completely sufficient; for cutting-edge research, professional English paper writing, and ultra-long context processing, closed-source international products still have certain advantages in some scenarios.

Will the use of these three companies be affected by foreign bans?

Doubao, DeepSeek, and Tongyi Qianwen are all operated by domestic manufacturers, and the servers and compliance frameworks are all in China, so domestic users are stable and will not "suddenly not be able to use them." Their web versions are accessed very quickly in the country and do not require any additional tools. If you are overseas, some functions may have access restrictions, but overall the three companies are more usable than international products in China.