From 25,000 daily visits in August 2024 to 614 million monthly visits after V4 launched. Track deepseek.com's global rank, traffic sources, competitor standing, and audience data — all in one place.
Monthly visits plotted from August 2024 through May 2026. The R1 launch (Jan 2025) and V4 launch (Apr 2026) created the two biggest traffic spikes in AI history.
Direct traffic dominates — 70.5% arrive by typing deepseek.com directly, indicating very high brand recognition and return visitor rates.
Where deepseek.com ranks relative to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity across traffic, rank, and growth metrics.
| Platform | Global Rank | Monthly Visits | Gen AI Share | Avg Session | Category Rank | YoY Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | #10 | ~5.5B | 64.5% | ~8 min | #1 AI | +18% |
| Gemini | #52 | ~1.8B | 21.5% | ~7 min | #2 AI | +548% (2025) |
| DeepSeek ↓ | #118 | 276–614M | 4.2% | 10:56 min | #4 AI | +2,256% (Jan'25) |
| Claude | ~#200 | ~600M | ~4% | ~9 min | #5 AI | +120% |
| Grok | ~#300 | ~300M | 3%+ | ~5 min | #6 AI | +4,168% (Feb'25) |
| Perplexity | ~#400 | ~200M | ~2% | ~8 min | #7 AI | +180% |
Data: Similarweb (Oct 2025 – Feb 2026). Gen AI traffic share from Similarweb Jan 2026. Visit figures are estimates.
How AI platform traffic share has shifted from January 2025 to January 2026 — DeepSeek entered a market dominated by ChatGPT and immediately captured 4.2%.
Younger, male-dominated, developer-skewed audience with exceptionally high engagement metrics. Source: Similarweb, Backlinko.
Unusually desktop-heavy for an AI tool — signals professional and developer usage rather than casual mobile.
From a pre-launch obscurity to a top-120 global website in 15 months — every major milestone that shaped DeepSeek's traffic trajectory.
deepseek.com receives roughly 7,500 daily visitors — a niche research tool known primarily in Chinese AI circles. Traffic value estimated at $2,800/day.
~7,500 daily visitorsDeepSeek-V3 releases, triggering the first global coverage wave. Daily visitors grow from 25,000 to ~100,000 in weeks. Still outside top 1,000 globally.
~100K daily visitorsR1 goes public. Within days, DeepSeek hits #1 App Store in 157 countries. Traffic surges 2,256% vs December 2024. Jan 28 becomes the single biggest day: 49 million visits.
277.9M visits in JanuaryJust 15 days after R1 launch, deepseek.com ranks #103 globally — 342.3 million visits in 28 days, with 90% coming in the final 15 days. Outpaces Google Gemini (245M).
Global rank #103Traffic stabilizes at 200–300M monthly visits. DeepSeek secures a permanent top-5 AI platform position. Monthly active users grow to 96.88M by April 2025 (#4 AI app globally).
96.88M monthly active usersFirst UI redesign in DeepSeek's history. Fast Mode (V4-Flash) and Expert Mode (V4-Pro) launched. 1M token context available to all users. Traffic begins climbing ahead of V4 release.
1M token context launchedV4-Pro and V4-Flash release causes a 121% traffic spike. Monthly visits jump from 277M to 614M in February 2026. The "AI Reality Check" — frontier performance at 1/7th the cost of closed models.
614M monthly visits (peak)deepseek.com holds global rank #118. 131.5M monthly users. 4.2% Gen AI traffic share. 10:56 average session duration. Ranked #4 in AI Chatbots category globally by Similarweb.
Global rank #118 · #4 AI chatbotThese are the best tools for monitoring deepseek.com's traffic, rank, and competitive position in real time.
The primary source for DeepSeek's global rank, traffic volume, channel breakdown, and competitor analysis. Powers most published statistics about deepseek.com.
Best for SEO tracking, keyword rankings, and backlink monitoring. Shows deepseek.com's organic search growth, top keywords, and referring domains.
Track the search interest for "DeepSeek" over time. Great for visualizing the Jan 2025 R1 spike and April 2026 V4 spike — free, real-time, and globally available.
Tracks DeepSeek's API performance metrics: speed (83 tok/s), latency (1.11s TTFT), and intelligence scores across all model variants. Comprehensive AI model benchmarking.
As of May 2026, deepseek.com holds a global rank of approximately #118 worldwide according to Similarweb. This is a significant improvement from its pre-R1 position outside the top 1,000. For comparison, ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) is ranked around #10. DeepSeek is ranked #4 in the AI Chatbots and Tools category. Note: global rank changes monthly — check Similarweb for the latest figure.
Monthly visits fluctuate based on model launches and news cycles. Key data points: 277.9M visits in January 2025 (R1 launch), 276.28M visits in February 2026 (Semrush, pre-V4), and a peak of 614M monthly visits after the V4 launch in April 2026 according to Similarweb's Gen AI tracker. Current estimates are 276–300M monthly visits as traffic stabilizes post-launch spike. All figures are estimates from third-party analytics tools — DeepSeek does not publish official traffic numbers.
The growth was extraordinary. DeepSeek went from approximately 7,500 daily visitors in August 2024 to 49 million visits in a single day (January 28, 2025) — a 6,500× increase. January 2025 traffic was +2,256% vs December 2024. Within 15 days of the R1 launch, deepseek.com reached global rank #103 with 342.3M visits. Traffic growth slowed and stabilized through 2025, before a second 121% spike in February 2026 when V4 launched.
China is the single largest source at approximately 20.27% of traffic. However, Russia overtook China as the top country on some measurement periods (Semrush reported Russia first in February 2026). The full top-5 from Backlinko data: China 20.27%, Russia ~15%, United States 8.99%, India 7.63%, Germany ~4.5%. Notably, India and Indonesia are the fastest-growing markets. Together, China, India, and Indonesia account for 51.24% of monthly active users.
DeepSeek captured 4.2% of Gen AI website traffic as of January 2026 according to Similarweb. This may seem small but represents a remarkable achievement: DeepSeek went from 0% share in December 2024 to 4.2% in one month. During the same period, ChatGPT's share fell from 86.7% to 64.5%, and Gemini quadrupled to 21.5%. DeepSeek and Grok each crossed 3% — making four platforms with over 3% share for the first time. Note: 70.6% of AI traffic arrives as "dark traffic" with no referrer headers, so actual attributed shares are underestimates.
DeepSeek's 10:56 average session duration is approximately double the industry average for AI chatbots. Several factors explain this: (1) Developer and researcher audience — 81.63% desktop usage suggests professional rather than casual use, with sessions involving complex tasks like coding and research. (2) Free frontier model access — users can access V4-Pro quality for free, encouraging longer, more involved sessions. (3) File uploads and long-context analysis — reviewing large documents takes more time. The 4.39 pages per visit and 30.85% bounce rate reinforce the picture of highly engaged, returning users.
The best free option is Google Trends for search interest. For detailed traffic data, Similarweb's free tier shows global rank and approximate traffic monthly. For SEO metrics, Semrush provides organic keyword data (limited free lookups). For AI-specific analytics — including API speed and model benchmarks — Artificial Analysis is the most comprehensive. None of these provide data in real time; Similarweb and Semrush typically lag 2–4 weeks.
All data on this page comes from Similarweb, Semrush, Backlinko, and Artificial Analysis. Check the primary sources for the latest numbers.