DeepSeek Coder alternatives

7 tools we tested head to head against DeepSeek Coder, ranked — and what each one actually does differently.

last reviewed 29 jul 2026 · from our best 8 coding llms ·list curated by Onur Ozcanx in

first — what you'd be leaving

DeepSeek Coder ranks #2 of 8 in our coding llms testing. the brand is now an api alias — and the models behind it went from a restrictive weights licence to plain mit..

88/100

the strongest swe-bench numbers here under a licence that got more permissive rather than less — with no small variant left for anyone who wanted the original.

why people look for an alternative

−no standalone coder models remain — it's an api alias
−smallest option needs ~140gb at 4-bit
−nothing runs locally, unlike the original 1.3b-33b line
−fill-in-the-middle support unconfirmed for v4

stay with DeepSeek Coder if plain mit on both code and weights, a genuine loosening is the thing you care about most — nothing below beats it on that.

the short version

best alternativeQwen3-Coderrepository-scale agentic work where the context window and the licence both need to be unrestricted.90/100

Qwen3-Coder

#1 in coding llms · apache 2.0 confirmed in the licence text, a million tokens of context, and now a version small enough to actually run.

90/100

verdictthe cleanest licence and the longest context in the category, with a february variant that finally makes it deployable outside a datacentre.

Qwen3-Coder vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	Qwen3-Coder
price	free (mit)	free (apache 2.0)
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	apache 2.0
params	284b/13b active (flash)	480b/35b active; next 80b/3b
context	not confirmed per variant	262k, 1m via yarn
commercial use	unrestricted	unrestricted
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~240gb, or ~40gb for next

switch forrepository-scale agentic work where the context window and the licence both need to be unrestricted.

pros

+plain apache 2.0, verified in the licence file
+262k native context extending to 1m via yarn
+qwen3-coder-next brings it to ~40gb for local use
+38.7 on swe-bench pro from the model's own repo

cons

−flagship needs ~240gb at 4-bit — server only
−swe-bench verified figures conflict across sources
−fill-in-the-middle support unconfirmed for this generation
−two very different models under one name

visit Qwen3-Coder →full Qwen3-Coder review →

Seed-Coder-8B

#3 in coding llms · plain mit, native fill-in-the-middle, and it fits in five gigabytes — the practical local pick.

84/100

verdictthe best thing here that actually runs on a laptop, with the cleanest licence and the fill-in-the-middle training the frontier models skipped.

Seed-Coder-8B vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	Seed-Coder-8B
price	free (mit)	free (mit)
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	mit
params	284b/13b active (flash)	8b
context	not confirmed per variant	32k tokens
commercial use	unrestricted	unrestricted
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~5gb at 4-bit

switch foreditor completion on your own machine, where latency beats leaderboard position.

pros

+plain mit with no conditions
+native fill-in-the-middle and spm training
+~5gb at 4-bit — genuinely local
+humaneval 84.8 and mbpp 85.2 self-reported

cons

−8b is the only size — no larger variant
−no update since june 2025
−32k context, shortest among the current models here
−cannot match frontier agentic coders on large repos

visit Seed-Coder-8B →full Seed-Coder-8B review →

Granite (IBM)

#4 in coding llms · apache 2.0, native fim, half a million tokens of context — and the dedicated code line is officially deprecated.

80/100

verdictthe cleanest licensing story in this ranking and native fim at 5gb — on a product line ibm has folded into its general models.

Granite (IBM) vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	Granite (IBM)
price	free (mit)	free (apache 2.0)
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	apache 2.0
params	284b/13b active (flash)	3b, 8b, 30b dense
context	not confirmed per variant	512k in 4.1
commercial use	unrestricted	unrestricted
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~5gb at 4-bit (8b)

switch forenterprises wanting unambiguous licensing and very long context at sizes that run locally.

pros

+apache 2.0 with licence and documentation in agreement
+cryptographically signed weights
+native fill-in-the-middle support
+512k context in granite 4.1 at ~5gb for the 8b

cons

−dedicated granite code line explicitly deprecated
−coding is now a general-model capability, not a specialism
−trails dedicated coders on pure code benchmarks
−legacy code models capped at 4k context

visit Granite (IBM) →full Granite (IBM) review →

Devstral

#5 in coding llms · the small one is apache 2.0 and the big one stops working for you the month you pass $20m in revenue.

77/100

verdicttwo models, two licences, and mistral says so plainly — which after codestral from the same company is a meaningful improvement in candour.

Devstral vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	Devstral
price	free (mit)	free below the threshold
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	modified mit (123b), apache (24b)
params	284b/13b active (flash)	123b and 24b
context	not confirmed per variant	128k on small
commercial use	unrestricted	capped at $20m/month on 123b
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~14gb (24b), ~70gb (123b)

switch foragentic coding scaffolds, at 24b for anyone, at 123b for companies under the revenue line.

pros

+devstral small 24b is plain apache 2.0
+mistral states the licence split explicitly
+purpose-built for agentic coding scaffolds
+24b runs in about 14gb at 4-bit

cons

−123b rights revoked above $20m monthly revenue
−hard cutoff rather than a graduated licence fee
−fill-in-the-middle support unconfirmed
−devstral 2's context length not confirmed

visit Devstral →full Devstral review →

GLM-4.6

#6 in coding llms · near-frontier coding under what its badge says is mit — and the licence file itself returns 404.

72/100

verdictreportedly close to claude sonnet 4 on real-world coding, with the one thing this ranking insists on — a readable licence — missing.

GLM-4.6 vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	GLM-4.6
price	free (mit)	free (mit, unverified)
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	mit per tag, file unreadable
params	284b/13b active (flash)	~355b
context	not confirmed per variant	200k tokens
commercial use	unrestricted	unrestricted, unverified
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~180gb at 4-bit

switch forhosted agentic coding through claude code or cline-style tooling, where you won't be self-hosting anyway.

pros

+reported near-parity with claude sonnet 4 on cc-bench
+200k context, up from 128k in glm-4.5
+built for claude code and cline-style integration
+mit per the hugging face licence tag

cons

−raw licence file returned 404 — text unverified
−~180gb at 4-bit, datacentre only
−superseded by glm-5.1 and 5.2 as general flagships
−no primary benchmark figure retrievable from zhipu

visit GLM-4.6 →full GLM-4.6 review →

StarCoder2

#7 in coding llms · 600 languages at two gigabytes, under a licence whose conditions you have to pass on to your own users.

66/100

verdictstill the best small multi-language coder and two and a half years old — with commercial permission that comes with strings attached to your own terms of service.

StarCoder2 vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	StarCoder2
price	free (mit)	free (openrail-m)
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	bigcode openrail-m v1
params	284b/13b active (flash)	3b, 7b, 15b
context	not confirmed per variant	16k, 4k sliding window
commercial use	unrestricted	permitted with use restrictions
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~2-9gb at 4-bit

switch forbroad language coverage on small hardware, for teams willing to carry the licence terms downstream.

pros

+600+ programming languages via the stack v2
+sizes from ~2gb, the smallest here
+native fill-in-the-middle training
+15b reported matching codellama-34b

cons

−openrail-m restrictions must be passed to your end users
−disclosure obligation on public-facing generated content
−no update since february 2024
−16k context with 4k sliding-window attention

visit StarCoder2 →full StarCoder2 review →

Codestral

#8 in coding llms · downloadable, and forbidden in production — the licence is a flat non-commercial bar, not a threshold.

58/100

verdictthe most restrictive licence in this ranking by a distance, on a model whose current iteration may not have open weights at all.

Codestral vs DeepSeek Coder

	DeepSeek Coder	Codestral
price	free (mit)	research use only
free tier	yes	yes
licence	mit	mistral non-production licence
params	284b/13b active (flash)	22b (open checkpoint)
context	not confirmed per variant	128k tokens
commercial use	unrestricted	prohibited without a paid licence
runs on	~140gb at 4-bit	~13gb at 4-bit

switch forresearch, evaluation and prototypes that will never ship.

pros

+long-established fill-in-the-middle tuned for editors
+128k context on the documented model card
+22b runs in about 13gb for research use
+available as a supported paid api

cons

−non-production licence bars commercial use entirely
−commercial terms require a private negotiation
−current 25.08 iteration appears to be api-only
−launch framing understates the prohibition

visit Codestral →full Codestral review →

how these were compared

every tool on this page went through the same test as DeepSeek Coder — same tasks, same order, scored the same way. the comparison tables are the figures from that testing, not vendor spec sheets.

the coding llms test in full →

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