Qwen Coder or DeepSeek-Coder: which coding model to pick
Both families are built for code, both are in Ollama and both run on a CPU in their smaller sizes. Qwen Coder is broader and newer: from 0.5B for autocompletion to 480B-A35B for agents, with Qwen3-Coder-Next 80B-A3B released in February 2026 and working as a developer agent on a single GPU; licensing is Apache 2.0 apart from CodeQwen1.5 and Qwen2.5-Coder-3B, which use Qwen's own license. DeepSeek-Coder stopped at the Instruct release of September 2024 and ships under the DeepSeek License: commercial use is allowed, but with a list of prohibited applications, while the repository code itself is MIT. After that, coding work moved into DeepSeek's general-purpose models.
Comparison based on catalog data
| Parameter | Qwen Coder | DeepSeek-Coder |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Code | Code |
| Developer | Alibaba (Qwen team), China | DeepSeek, China |
| Releases | Apr 2024 – Feb 2026 | Nov 2023 – Sep 2024 |
| Sizes | 0.5B – 480B-A35B | 1.3B – 236B-A21B |
| Hardware | Laptop, 1 GPU, Cluster | Laptop, 1 GPU, Cluster |
| Commercial use | Commercial use allowed | Commercial use with conditions |
| License | Apache 2.0 (CodeQwen1.5 and Qwen2.5-Coder-3B have their own Qwen license) | DeepSeek License (commercial use allowed, some uses prohibited); code under MIT |
| Russian | Not stated | Not supported |
| Ollama | Yes | Yes |
| Without GPU | Yes | Yes |
| Tasks |
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Choose Qwen Coder if
- You need an agent that edits code in the repository on its own
- Apache 2.0 matters, and so do releases from 2026
- You want autocompletion on a weak machine: there is a 0.5B size
Choose DeepSeek-Coder if
- You already run a DeepSeek-Coder stack and have no plans to change it
- Your scope is narrow: autocompletion, code translation, explaining other people's code
- The DeepSeek License and its list of restrictions work for you
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