DeepSeek and Manus: The twin stars of the AI race, who is your favorite

DeepSeek and Manus: Igniting the AI Craze

In today's rapidly advancing technological era, the field of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to produce remarkable innovations, with DeepSeek and Manus standing out as prominent examples. These two products have quickly sparked a wave of excitement in the AI domain, capturing the attention of countless tech enthusiasts, industry experts, and everyday users, becoming hot topics of discussion.

DeepSeek has garnered a large user base globally due to its powerful language understanding and generation capabilities, excellent logical reasoning, and extensive knowledge base. Whether in academic research, business analysis, or daily creative writing, DeepSeek plays a significant role. On the other hand, Manus, as the world's first universal AI Agent product, has taken the tech world by storm with its ability to think independently, plan, and execute complex tasks, delivering complete results directly. Upon its release, Manus' website traffic surged, and its invitation codes were even sold at high prices on secondary markets, highlighting its popularity.

Given the immense popularity of these two AI products, what are the differences between them? Which one better meets our needs? Let's delve deeper to find out.

1. Technical Architecture: Different Underlying Logics

(1) DeepSeek: The Charm of the Mixture of Experts Model

DeepSeek employs a unique Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture, which is like a vast and orderly kingdom of knowledge, dividing the model into multiple expert sub-models. Each expert focuses on different tasks or domains, working independently yet collaboratively. In DeepSeek-V3, the total parameters reach 671 billion, but remarkably, only 37 billion parameters are activated during each computation. This is akin to a large army where only the most suitable troops are deployed based on the mission's requirements, significantly improving efficiency and avoiding resource waste.

This dynamic parameter activation allows DeepSeek to quickly invoke the most relevant knowledge and capabilities when handling complex tasks, much like an experienced doctor who accurately applies different medical knowledge and skills to diagnose and treat various conditions. Through the MoE architecture, DeepSeek achieves efficient utilization of computational resources, maintaining powerful language understanding and generation capabilities while significantly reducing computational costs, providing strong support for large-scale applications.

(2) Manus: The Power of Multi-Agent Systems

Manus adopts a Multiple Agent System architecture, which is fundamentally different from DeepSeek's approach. Manus operates like a highly efficient collaborative team, composed of multiple sub-agents, each with unique responsibilities and capabilities. When handling tasks, these sub-agents work together like a well-orchestrated symphony, with each instrument group closely coordinating to produce a beautiful melody.

For example, when tasked with creating a complex market research report, the planning sub-agent first breaks down the task and formulates detailed execution steps and plans. The execution sub-agent then calls various tools, such as a browser to collect market data and a code editor for data analysis. The verification sub-agent checks and validates the results to ensure the report's accuracy and reliability. This multi-agent collaborative approach enables Manus to handle complex tasks with high flexibility and autonomy.

Additionally, Manus' multi-agent system supports asynchronous processing, allowing it to run tasks continuously in the cloud without requiring users to wait. This is similar to downloading a large file while doing other tasks, significantly improving efficiency and allowing users to make better use of their time.

2. Functional Positioning: Different Roles and Focuses

(1) DeepSeek: The Super Brain, the Wisdom Bearer

DeepSeek positions itself as the "most powerful brain," focusing on optimizing language models and reasoning capabilities. It is like a wise strategist, freely navigating the ocean of knowledge, providing profound insights and precise strategies. When faced with complex professional questions, DeepSeek can quickly identify the core issues, leveraging its extensive knowledge base to conduct in-depth analysis and offer comprehensive answers.

In academic research, scholars often consult DeepSeek on various professional topics, from obscure theoretical knowledge to complex experimental designs. For instance, in physics, when asked about cutting-edge research topics in quantum mechanics, DeepSeek can elaborate on relevant theories, cite the latest research findings, and analyze and compare different viewpoints, providing valuable references for researchers. In medicine, doctors diagnosing rare conditions can use DeepSeek to query relevant medical literature and case studies, with DeepSeek quickly integrating information to suggest possible diagnoses and treatment options, becoming a valuable assistant.

In creative writing, DeepSeek also demonstrates exceptional capabilities. Whether writing captivating novels, moving poetry, or logically rigorous theses, it can generate high-quality text based on user needs and style requirements. It skillfully employs various rhetorical devices, creating vivid characters and compelling storylines that immerse readers. Additionally, DeepSeek can refine and optimize texts, making language more fluent and expressions more precise, helping creators enhance the quality of their work.

(2) Manus: The All-Rounder, the Execution Expert

Manus positions itself as a versatile digital employee, capable of handling tasks from planning to delivery, much like a diligent and capable doer who transforms ideas into actions. It can receive complex user instructions, autonomously break down tasks, call various tools such as browsers and code editors, and directly output results, truly providing a one-stop service from "thinking" to "execution."

In business operations, Manus' versatility is fully demonstrated. For example, in human resources management, when a company needs to recruit new employees, Manus can automatically unzip resume packages, extract key information, conduct preliminary screenings, and generate ranking suggestions, significantly saving time and effort for HR departments. In financial management, Manus can help companies analyze financial data, generate financial reports, and even provide reasonable financial advice and risk assessments based on market trends and the company's financial status, supporting decision-making.

In daily life, Manus can also be a helpful assistant. For instance, when planning a trip, simply provide Manus with your budget, destination, travel dates, and preferences, and it can generate a detailed travel guide, including attractions, transportation, and hotel bookings, even booking flights and hotels for you, making travel planning easy and convenient. Similarly, when handling tedious document tasks, such as converting PDFs to Word documents or merging multiple Excel sheets, Manus can quickly complete these tasks, freeing you from tedious operations and improving efficiency.

3. Application Scenarios: Matching Scenarios to Products

(1) DeepSeek: The Preferred Choice for Deep Knowledge Processing Scenarios

DeepSeek excels in scenarios requiring deep knowledge processing and high-precision single-threaded tasks, making it the preferred tool for such situations.

In the legal field, drafting complex legal documents requires a deep understanding and precise application of laws and regulations. DeepSeek, with its powerful language understanding and reasoning capabilities, can accurately grasp the meaning and applicability of legal provisions, providing professional document drafting services for legal practitioners. It can quickly generate drafts of contracts, indictments, judgments, and other legal documents, appropriately citing relevant laws and cases to ensure legality and rigor. Additionally, DeepSeek can refine and review legal documents, checking for logical flaws, grammatical errors, or inappropriate expressions, helping legal professionals improve document quality and reduce legal risks.

Academic refinement is another strength of DeepSeek. Researchers often spend considerable time and effort ensuring their academic papers are accurately and fluently expressed, adhering to academic standards.  DeepSeek can assist researchers by conducting comprehensive grammar checks and vocabulary optimization, transforming obscure sentences into clear and understandable expressions. Moreover, DeepSeek can provide relevant academic references and citation suggestions based on the paper's topic and content, helping researchers enrich their papers and enhance academic quality. With the increasing frequency of international academic exchanges, DeepSeek's multilingual support can also help researchers translate papers into different languages, expanding their reach.

Mathematical calculations are challenging for many, especially when dealing with complex formulas and algorithms. DeepSeek, however, can easily handle various mathematical problems, whether algebra, geometry, calculus, or probability theory. For example, when solving mathematical modeling problems, DeepSeek can establish appropriate mathematical models based on given problem descriptions and data, applying relevant algorithms to derive solutions. It can also analyze and interpret results, helping users understand the problem's essence and the solution's rationality. This makes DeepSeek widely applicable in research, engineering, and finance, providing efficient mathematical computing support for professionals.

(2) Manus: The King of Multi-Step Collaborative Scenarios

Manus demonstrates unparalleled advantages in scenarios requiring multi-step collaboration and cross-platform automated execution, making it the king of such situations.

In resume screening, HR departments often face the tedious and time-consuming task of sifting through numerous resumes. Manus can easily handle this challenge by automatically unzipping files containing multiple resumes, browsing each resume, extracting key information such as work experience, educational background, and professional skills, and conducting preliminary screenings based on preset criteria. During the screening process, Manus can record important information, evaluate and rank candidates, and finally generate detailed candidate profiles and evaluation reports. This process is not only efficient and accurate but also significantly reduces the workload of HR departments, improving recruitment efficiency.

Business analysis also benefits from Manus' capabilities. When formulating business strategies, companies need comprehensive analysis of market data, competitor information, and industry trends. Manus can autonomously complete the entire process from data collection to report generation by calling various tools, such as browsers for market data collection, code editors for data analysis, and visualization tools for chart creation. For example, when analyzing the market competitiveness of a product, Manus can automatically collect sales data, user reviews, and competitor information from various e-commerce platforms, then use data analysis algorithms to deeply mine the data, identifying the product's strengths and weaknesses and providing improvement suggestions and marketing strategies. This automated business analysis process enables companies to make quick decisions and seize market opportunities.

Travel planning also showcases Manus' powerful functionality. When planning a trip, simply provide Manus with your destination, dates, budget, and interests, and it can create a detailed and personalized travel guide.  Manus integrates various information, including attractions, transportation, hotel bookings, and dining recommendations, creating a customized travel handbook. It can also adjust based on real-time needs, such as changing itineraries or adding attractions. Moreover, Manus can directly book flights, hotels, and tickets, offering a one-stop travel planning service, making your trip more convenient and enjoyable.

4. Core Advantages: Unique Strengths Shine

(1) DeepSeek: Significant Language and Cost Advantages

DeepSeek stands out in language understanding and generation, delivering impressive performance. It achieves high accuracy in various language tasks, particularly in Chinese knowledge Q&A and complex semantic parsing, demonstrating a deep understanding of Chinese language nuances and contexts, providing precise and logical answers. This is attributed to its powerful language models and advanced algorithms, enabling it to accurately grasp the meaning of each word and understand the deep structure and semantic relationships of sentences, generating high-quality text.

In Chinese knowledge Q&A, DeepSeek can quickly search its vast knowledge base, filter the most relevant information from massive data, and integrate and analyze it to provide concise and clear answers. Whether it's history, culture, science, or everyday questions, DeepSeek can handle them with ease, offering accurate answers. For example, when asked about the impact of China's Four Great Inventions on world civilization, DeepSeek not only elaborates on the inventions but also analyzes their significant roles in advancing global technology, economy, and culture, citing rich historical materials and research findings to provide authoritative and persuasive answers.

In complex semantic parsing, DeepSeek also excels. It can process texts containing metaphors, irony, puns, and other rhetorical devices, accurately understanding the author's intent and emotional tone. For instance, for the metaphorical line "The silkworm dies only when its silk is exhausted, the candle's tears dry only when it turns to ash," DeepSeek can interpret the praise for dedication and the poet's steadfastness in love. This precise understanding of complex semantics makes DeepSeek widely applicable in text analysis and sentiment recognition, helping businesses better understand user needs and optimize products and services.

In addition to its language capabilities, DeepSeek also has some multimodal compatibility, allowing it to process various types of data. It can receive high-resolution image inputs and combine image information for language understanding and generation. For example, when given a landscape photo, DeepSeek can describe the scene, such as "The photo shows a serene lake with clear water, surrounded by lush green mountains, with clouds and mist shrouding the peaks, resembling a beautiful landscape painting." This multimodal processing capability offers users a richer and more intuitive interactive experience, expanding AI application scenarios.

In terms of cost, DeepSeek demonstrates significant advantages. Its inference cost is only 1/10 of similar products, allowing developers to achieve efficient AI application development at a lower cost. For businesses, lower costs mean higher profit margins and stronger market competitiveness. In large-scale applications, DeepSeek's low-cost advantage is particularly evident, helping companies save substantial computational resources and financial investments. For example, an online education company using DeepSeek to develop an intelligent tutoring system can provide smart tutoring services to more students without significantly increasing costs, improving teaching efficiency and quality. This low-cost advantage makes DeepSeek the preferred tool for many developers and businesses.

(2) Manus: Strong in Task Closure and Toolchain Integration

Manus' core advantage lies in its powerful task closure capability, enabling it to handle various complex tasks with exceptional efficiency and autonomy. From the moment a user issues a command, Manus acts like a well-trained professional, quickly analyzing the task comprehensively and deeply, breaking it down into specific sub-tasks, and formulating detailed execution plans. During execution, it closely coordinates each sub-agent, leveraging their expertise to methodically advance the task. When encountering issues or needing strategy adjustments, Manus can quickly respond, flexibly adjusting execution plans to ensure successful task delivery. The entire process is seamless, requiring minimal user intervention, truly achieving full-process automation from task planning to delivery.

When handling a large project proposal, Manus can first analyze the project's goals, requirements, and constraints, then break down the proposal writing task into sub-tasks such as market research, competitor analysis, project design, and budget planning. It can call a browser to collect relevant market data and industry information, use data analysis tools to organize and analyze the data, employ word processing software to write each section, and finally integrate all parts into a complete project proposal. Throughout this process, Manus can automatically handle various details, such as formatting adjustments and content proofreading, ensuring the proposal's quality and professionalism. Users only need to provide clear instructions at the start and wait for Manus to deliver the final result, significantly saving time and effort.

Manus' excellent toolchain integration is another highlight. It functions like a versatile toolbox, supporting the use of various common tools such as browsers, code editors, data analysis software, and design tools, providing rich resources and strong support for task completion. Through seamless integration with these tools, Manus can flexibly select and apply the most suitable tools based on task requirements, achieving various complex functions. Whether it's data collection, analysis, processing, or content creation, design, and presentation, Manus can efficiently complete tasks with the help of its toolchain.

When market data analysis is needed, Manus can directly call professional data analysis software, such as Python's data analysis libraries (Pandas, NumPy) or business intelligence tools (Tableau, PowerBI), to clean, transform, statistically analyze, and visually present collected data. It can automatically write code to implement data processing workflows, generating various charts and reports to intuitively present data information and trends. For creative design, Manus can call design tools like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create design sketches, icons, posters, and other works based on user needs. It can understand user design intentions, utilize various functions of design tools, and realize creative ideas, providing users with high-quality design outcomes.

In the GAIA benchmark test, Manus' performance was remarkable, fully demonstrating its excellence in task decomposition and execution. Its task decomposition granularity reached an astonishing 0.1-second decision-making level, meaning it can finely analyze and decompose tasks in a very short time, formulating optimal execution plans. Compared to similar products from OpenAI, Manus has surpassed in performance, showcasing strong competitiveness. This high performance enables Manus to complete complex tasks more quickly and accurately, providing users with efficient services. For example, when handling urgent business decision-making tasks, Manus can quickly analyze market data and competitor dynamics, rapidly formulating response strategies to help companies seize market opportunities and make wise decisions.

5. Challenges and Future: Opportunities and Challenges Coexist

(1) DeepSeek: Overcoming Shortcomings, Expanding Boundaries

Despite DeepSeek's significant achievements in language capabilities and cost control, it faces some challenges. First, the lag in knowledge base updates is a notable issue. In this era of information explosion, knowledge updates rapidly, and DeepSeek's knowledge base may not keep up with the latest research and events, leading to outdated information when answering time-sensitive questions.

Insufficient multimodal capabilities are another area for improvement. Although DeepSeek has some multimodal compatibility, allowing it to process high-resolution image inputs, its visual module still needs enhancement compared to competitors excelling in multimodal fields. In complex task processing, DeepSeek currently relies on manual training, which limits its application and development in complex scenarios.

To address these challenges, DeepSeek has formulated a series of development plans. It will further improve its open-source ecosystem, attracting more developers to participate in model optimization and enhancement, leveraging collective wisdom to continuously improve model performance and capabilities. DeepSeek will also increase investment in technical research, particularly in multimodal technology, striving to enhance its multimodal processing capabilities and expand application scenarios. By collaborating with more research institutions and businesses, DeepSeek aims to acquire more data and resources, enriching its knowledge base, improving update speed and quality, and providing users with more comprehensive, accurate, and timely services.

(2) Manus: Optimizing Mechanisms, Exploring Collaboration

Manus also faces challenges in its development. In automated workflows, the risk of error propagation is a significant concern. Since Manus' task execution relies on the collaboration of multiple sub-agents, an error in one sub-agent can lead to deviations or failures in the entire task process. For example, in stock analysis tasks, if the data collection sub-agent obtains incorrect data, subsequent analysis and report generation will be affected, potentially leading to erroneous decision-making.

High computational power consumption is another challenge for Manus. To achieve efficient task execution and complex computations, Manus requires substantial computational resources, increasing operational costs and demanding higher hardware requirements. In practical applications, high computational power consumption may limit Manus' large-scale promotion and application. Ecosystem barriers are another obstacle Manus needs to overcome. With more large models building their own toolchains, Manus may face competition from other players. Breaking ecosystem barriers and achieving compatibility and collaboration with more tools and platforms is a crucial issue for Manus.

To tackle these challenges, Manus will focus on verifying the reliability of complex tasks, continuously optimizing task execution processes and algorithms, improving collaboration efficiency and accuracy among sub-agents, and reducing error propagation risks. In optimizing exception handling mechanisms, Manus will further enhance its system to better handle various emergencies, such as network interruptions and server failures, ensuring task completion.

Manus will also actively explore collaboration with other models, particularly nested collaboration with language models like DeepSeek. By combining DeepSeek's powerful language understanding and generation capabilities with Manus' task execution abilities, Manus can provide users with more intelligent and efficient services. For example, in legal-related tasks, Manus can call DeepSeek to interpret and analyze legal provisions, then execute specific tasks like contract drafting and legal document organization based on DeepSeek's results, achieving complementary strengths and enhancing overall performance.

6、 Conclusion: Choosing the right one is the best

DeepSeek and Manus, as outstanding representatives in the field of AI, have each demonstrated unique charm and value. DeepSeek, with its powerful language understanding and generation capabilities, excellent reasoning skills, and low-cost advantages, plays a key role in deep knowledge processing scenarios and has become a powerful assistant for people to obtain professional knowledge and accurate answers; Manus, on the other hand, shines in multi-step collaboration scenarios with its excellent task closed-loop execution ability and powerful toolchain integration ability, providing strong support for people to achieve automated processes and improve work efficiency.

In practical applications, we should not simply judge DeepSeek or Manus as better, but make choices based on our specific needs and usage scenarios. If you need to solve complex professional problems, conduct in-depth knowledge mining, or pursue high-quality text creation, DeepSeek is undoubtedly your first choice; If you want to automate task execution, improve workflow efficiency, or handle multi-step collaborative tasks, Manus would be a more suitable partner.

Looking ahead to the future, both DeepSeek and Manus are constantly striving to break through their own technological bottlenecks and expand their application boundaries. With the continuous development and innovation of technology, we have reason to believe that these two products will achieve even more brilliant achievements in their respective fields, bringing more convenience and surprises to our lives and work. We also look forward to their technological integration in the future, leveraging their respective advantages to jointly promote AI technology to new heights and create a better future for humanity.