--- title: "DeepSeek vs Qwen — AI hype compared · Above the Fog" canonical_url: https://abovethefog.app/compare/deepseek-vs-qwen as_of: 2026-10-29 updated: 2026-10-30T16:24:07Z --- # DeepSeek vs Qwen [Home](https://abovethefog.app/index.md) › [Compare](https://abovethefog.app/compare.md) › DeepSeek vs Qwen [DeepSeek](https://abovethefog.app/topics/deepseek.md) and [Qwen](https://abovethefog.app/topics/qwen.md) side by side on Above the Fog’s AI hype radar, on Oct 29, 2026: DeepSeek is 💤 Quiet with a hype score of 12 and Qwen is 🚀 Rising with 42. The radar’s curated relations list them as competitors. **Data note:** 7 of the last 14 days were not collected live. No collection ran on Oct 22–Oct 28, or a later run refilled those days at once. Every hype score is measured against the 14 days before it and those days are thin, so the scores, the stages and the week-over-week theme trends may read higher than they are until they leave that window on Nov 12. ## At a glance | Measure | DeepSeek | Qwen | |---|---|---| | Stage | 💤 Quiet | 🚀 Rising | | Hype score | 12.4 | 42.2 | | 7-day change | −14.8 | +33.6 | | In hype since | not in hype now | Oct 29, 2026 | | Peak, 30 days | 78.8 on Oct 19, 2026 | 42.2 on Oct 29, 2026 | | Stories in 7 days | 206 | 284 | | Share of voice, 7 days | 2.9% | 2.3% | | Sources above normal | 1 of 19 | 3 of 19 | | Category | 🧠 Models | 🧠 Models | ## Hype score, last 30 days Both hype scores by day, newest first; on the page’s chart, DeepSeek is the solid line and Qwen the dashed one. | Day | DeepSeek | Qwen | |---|---:|---:| | Oct 29, 2026 | 12.4 | 42.2 | | Oct 28, 2026 | 3.8 | 15 | | Oct 27, 2026 | 3.5 | 10.7 | | Oct 26, 2026 | 2 | 10.2 | | Oct 25, 2026 | 1.8 | 0 | | Oct 24, 2026 | 0 | 0 | | Oct 23, 2026 | 24.8 | 8.3 | | Oct 22, 2026 | 27.2 | 8.6 | | Oct 21, 2026 | 65 | 10.1 | | Oct 20, 2026 | 78.8 | 2.5 | | Oct 19, 2026 | 78.8 | 11.4 | | Oct 18, 2026 | 43.5 | 8.3 | | Oct 17, 2026 | 62.7 | 0 | | Oct 16, 2026 | 18.6 | 24.5 | | Oct 15, 2026 | 36.7 | 18.6 | | Oct 14, 2026 | 19.7 | 16.8 | | Oct 13, 2026 | 28.9 | 21.7 | | Oct 12, 2026 | 29.5 | 5.1 | | Oct 11, 2026 | 1.2 | 3 | | Oct 10, 2026 | 5.1 | 2.3 | | Oct 9, 2026 | 29.6 | 11.6 | | Oct 8, 2026 | 27.8 | 2.7 | | Oct 7, 2026 | 3.7 | 3.7 | | Oct 6, 2026 | 17.8 | 15.6 | | Oct 5, 2026 | 2.8 | 16.1 | | Oct 4, 2026 | 0 | 15.1 | | Oct 3, 2026 | 1 | 5.5 | | Oct 2, 2026 | 14 | 0.1 | | Oct 1, 2026 | 2.5 | 6 | | Sep 30, 2026 | 12.2 | 11.2 | ## Shared themes What the stories of both topics in the last 7 days are about, as classified by the Jev model (a story can carry several themes): - [Models](https://abovethefog.app/themes/models.md) — 77% of DeepSeek’s stories, 87% of Qwen’s - [Usage & adoption](https://abovethefog.app/themes/usage_adoption.md) — 18% of DeepSeek’s stories, 14% of Qwen’s - [Agents](https://abovethefog.app/themes/agents.md) — 27% of DeepSeek’s stories, 11% of Qwen’s - [Security & safety](https://abovethefog.app/themes/security_safety.md) — 9.1% of DeepSeek’s stories, 8.9% of Qwen’s - [Companies & business](https://abovethefog.app/themes/companies_business.md) — 6.1% of DeepSeek’s stories, 4.4% of Qwen’s ## DeepSeek: stories behind it 1. [DeepSeek V5 spotted in DeepSeek Harness tests — are we getting closer to a release?](https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepSeek/comments/1xhokec/) — Reddit (r/DeepSeek) · Oct 28 · score 436 · 26 comments 2. [DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 at 41 tok/s on one 3090](https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1xh9yf7/) — Reddit (r/LocalLLaMA) · Oct 28 · score 154 · 107 comments 3. [Deepseek 4.1 Flash 1017 is the highest ranking open weights model on FrontierCode 2.0, a private benchmark. Its ahead of Kimi K3.1 Pro, & Gemini Argon](https://www.reddit.com/r/DeepSeek/comments/1xhpy23/) — Reddit (r/DeepSeek) · Oct 28 · score 153 · 17 comments 4. [CrowdStrike: China-linked hackers used AI tool ARTEX with a DeepSeek LLM and another model to target 200+ organizations in 11 days, compromising at least nine](https://www.techmeme.com/261030/p1#a261030p1) — Techmeme (NBC News) · Oct 30 · score 4 · 5 comments 5. [DeepSeek reportedly raises $15B days after US restrictions](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50256945) — Hacker News (techcrunch.com) · Oct 27 · score 4 · 1 comment ## Qwen: stories behind it 1. [Someone built a 32-bit RISC-V CPU directly inside Qwen's model weights so it can execute instructions internaly!](https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1xhmo1q/) — Reddit (r/LocalLLaMA) · Oct 28 · score 936 · 140 comments 2. [Qwen4 1M context window](https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1xi7390/) — Reddit (r/LocalLLaMA) · Oct 29 · score 526 · 221 comments 3. [Qwenputer: A functioning, deterministic RISC-V CPU inside Qwen3.5](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282838) — Hacker News (divagr.com) · Oct 29 · score 690 · 145 comments 4. [Used Qwen 3.8 flash next on underspeced PC to Root and gut LG TV of spy and adware](https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1xhoeo3/) — Reddit (r/LocalLLaMA) · Oct 28 · score 186 · 33 comments 5. [Qwen has alter egos triggered by flipping a single neuron](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50266910) — Hacker News (qwen-neurons-site.vercel.app) · Oct 27 · score 60 · 60 comments ## More comparisons - [DeepSeek vs GLM](https://abovethefog.app/compare/deepseek-vs-glm.md) - [DeepSeek vs Hunyuan](https://abovethefog.app/compare/deepseek-vs-hunyuan.md) - [DeepSeek vs Kimi](https://abovethefog.app/compare/deepseek-vs-kimi.md) - [GLM vs Qwen](https://abovethefog.app/compare/glm-vs-qwen.md) - [Hunyuan vs Qwen](https://abovethefog.app/compare/hunyuan-vs-qwen.md) - [Kimi vs Qwen](https://abovethefog.app/compare/kimi-vs-qwen.md) --- Updated Oct 30, 2026, 16:24 UTC · Data: Above the Fog hype radar [HTML page](https://abovethefog.app/compare/deepseek-vs-qwen) · [llms.txt](https://abovethefog.app/llms.txt) · [About & methodology](https://abovethefog.app/about.md) · [Privacy](https://abovethefog.app/about.md#privacy)