REVIEW 4 major objections 5 minor 11 references
ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek: A Comparative Study on AI-Based Code Generation
T0 review · 4 major / 5 minor · reviewed 2026-08-09 · deepseek-v4-flash
Pith's one-line read This paper argues that DeepSeek R1 outperforms ChatGPT o1 at producing correct Python code on algorithmic contest problems, often on the first try, while ChatGPT writes shorter, cleaner code.
desk verdict A thin, outcome-selected benchmark whose headline claim about DeepSeek's superiority is not supported by its own numbers. read the letter →
The pith
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
The reading
What carries the argument
The central mechanism is an iterative online-judge loop: submit generated code to Codeforces, feed a non-Accepted verdict back to the model as an error message, resubmit up to three times, and score correctness as accepted attempts over total attempts. Correctness is scored as $\frac{\sum C_i}{\sum T_i}$, the number of Accepted verdicts over total submissions, giving 0.5454 for DeepSeek and 0.1875 for ChatGPT. The comparison also uses Pylint/Flake8 issue counts, measured wall-clock time and memory, and active line count, with the correctness loop carrying the paper's main argument.
What would settle it
Submit both models to a fixed, pre-registered set of 50 Codeforces problems of mixed difficulty with the same three-attempt judge loop; if DeepSeek's Accepted rate and average attempts-to-accept are not better than ChatGPT's across the full set, the paper's central claim fails. A smaller check is to rerun the exact seven problems across many fresh sessions, since the current table reports single sessions.
Extended reading notes
Core claim
The paper's central discovery is that DeepSeek R1, when asked to solve Codeforces-style algorithmic problems in Python, achieved Accepted verdicts more often and with fewer resubmissions than ChatGPT o1. On the seven retained contest problems, DeepSeek solved cases that ChatGPT could not fix in three attempts, and the paper's aggregate correctness scores put DeepSeek at 0.5454 versus 0.1875 for ChatGPT. The paper also reports that on ten simple coding tasks ChatGPT posted fewer lint issues, shorter active code, and comparable or slightly lower time and memory, so the advantage is not a clean sweep. In the author's framing, DeepSeek has a potential advantage in tasks demanding precise algorithmic implementation, while ChatGPT remains competitive on style and conciseness.
Load-bearing premise
The load-bearing premise is that the seven Codeforces problems kept for the study represent Python coding well enough to back a general claim that DeepSeek is better; the benchmark was narrowed after manual tests produced no difference, so those seven problems could be precisely the ones where DeepSeek happens to shine.
Editorial extensions
If this is right
- DeepSeek's higher correctness score means an algorithmic coding workflow with judge feedback would need fewer model round-trips.
- ChatGPT's lower lint-issue counts and shorter code remain advantages once correctness is not the bottleneck.
- Both models can use judge error messages to repair their code, but DeepSeek converted those messages into Accepted solutions more often in this study.
- The correctness and style comparisons rest on different problem sets: seven Codeforces problems for correctness, ten simpler problems for style, time, memory, and lines.
- The reported efficiency scores, 0.62 for DeepSeek versus 0.51 for ChatGPT, indicate that the advantage persists when time to an accepted solution is factored in.
Reading between the lines
- Editorial extension: because the seven-problem correctness set was chosen only after manual tests failed to differentiate the models, the numeric gap should be treated as a hypothesis-generating signal until a larger pre-registered sample reproduces it.
- Editorial extension: the practical gap may be larger than raw judge outcomes suggest, because a first-try Accepted solution saves developer time and re-prompting effort that a third-try fix does not.
- Editorial extension: the same protocol on non-contest or non-Python tasks, or on newer model versions, could plausibly reverse the ranking, so the result is scoped to algorithmic Python contest problems.
Signed reviews
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The paper compares ChatGPT (o1) and DeepSeek (R1) on Python code generation. Correctness is evaluated by submitting generated solutions to Codeforces online judge problems, with up to three attempts per problem on a set of seven contest tasks. Code quality, efficiency, and conciseness are evaluated on ten simple programming tasks using Pylint/Flake8, execution time and memory, and active lines of code. The paper reports that DeepSeek achieves higher correctness (0.5454 vs. 0.1875 on a custom metric), often on the first or second attempt, while ChatGPT produces fewer lint issues, shorter code, and comparable or slightly better memory/time usage. The conclusion states that DeepSeek exhibits superior correctness in Python code generation and suggests an advantage in algorithmic problem-solving.
Significance. If the central claim were well supported, a head-to-head comparison of OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek R1 on algorithmic code generation would be useful for practitioners and researchers. The use of an external judge (Codeforces) for correctness is a sound idea, and the paper reports detailed per-problem outcomes in Table I, which is commendable. However, the study as presented does not provide a valid basis for the claimed general superiority. The benchmark was selected after preliminary tests failed to show differences, the sample is tiny, no statistical testing is performed, and the definitions of the evaluation metrics are problematic. The paper is therefore not yet a reliable empirical comparison, despite the transparency of its raw results.
major comments (4)
- [III (Test cases)] The selection of the Codeforces test set is outcome-dependent. The manuscript states that manually created test cases 'failed to reveal significant differences' and that the study consequently switched to Codeforces, which 'effectively highlighted the differences.' This means the seven retained problems were not chosen independently of the observed results, so the correctness comparison cannot support a general claim about model superiority. No evidence is given that the seven problems are representative of Python coding tasks or algorithmic problem-solving more broadly.
- [Table I and Section IV-B, Eq. (1)] The correctness evidence is statistically weak. With seven paired problems, counting an Accepted verdict at any attempt gives DeepSeek 6/7 and ChatGPT 3/7, with three discordant pairs all favoring DeepSeek; the exact two-sided McNemar p-value is 0.25. The paper instead reports a custom metric, the ratio of accepted attempts to total attempts (0.5454 vs. 0.1875), which is not a per-problem success rate and is directly affected by the arbitrary three-attempt cap. No confidence intervals or significance tests are provided, so even the direction of the effect is not reliably established.
- [IV-B, Eq. (2)] The efficiency metric is not meaningful as defined. Efficiency = sum of accepted attempts divided by sum of execution times for accepted attempts gives units of attempts per millisecond and mixes counts with durations. It is also computed only over accepted attempts, which creates a selection bias that is not discussed. The subsequent claim in the abstract and Section VI that 'both models showed almost similar efficiency' is based on Table II of ten simple tasks, not on the Codeforces problems used for the correctness comparison, yet the conclusion combines these different evaluations without acknowledging the mismatch.
- [V (Discussion and Limitations)] The paper admits lacking 'detailed information regarding resource constraints, server issues for DeepSeek, and data sources,' but these omissions are load-bearing for an empirical comparison. Without the exact prompts, model API settings (temperature, top-p, seed), date of runs, and the full set of generated code and judge verdicts, the experiment cannot be reproduced or independently verified. The absence of these artifacts is particularly serious given the small sample size and the outcome-dependent test-case selection.
minor comments (5)
- [Table I] The table header contains spelling errors ('REGARIDG', 'DeekSeek') and the column alignment is confusing because the 'Attempt 1/2/3' labels are not visually tied to the per-model columns; please reformat for clarity.
- [Table II] The entry '0..9' for DeepSeek's reverse linked list time is a typo and should be '0.9' or similar; also, the issue counts are not defined (what counts as one 'issue' in Pylint/Flake8?).
- [Fig. 1] The figure label says 'comparion' and the bars are not annotated with numerical values or error bars; please correct the label and add the underlying numbers.
- [IV-C and Table III] Table III is a subjective feature comparison (e.g., 'Advanced contextual understanding') that is not derived from the experimental results; please mark it clearly as an interpretive summary or remove it.
- [References] Reference [5] contains placeholder DOI text ('10.1145/nnnnnnn.nnnnnnn') and the reference list should be checked for formatting consistency.
Circularity Check
No significant circularity: the correctness comparison is a direct empirical measurement against the external Codeforces judge, with no fitted parameters or self-citation chain carrying the conclusion.
full rationale
The paper's central claim is an empirical benchmark result: DeepSeek and ChatGPT generated Python solutions to seven Codeforces problems, and the submissions were graded by the external online-judge verdicts (Accepted/Wrong/Runtime). The correctness metric (Correctness = sum of accepted attempts / sum of total attempts, Section IV.B.1) is an operationalization of the raw verdict counts (3/16 = 0.1875 for ChatGPT, 6/11 = 0.5454 for DeepSeek), and the abstract's conclusion straightforwardly restates that computed comparison. There is no equation that defines the conclusion into existence: the verdicts come from an independent judge, not from the paper's own definitions, so the derivation chain is not self-definitional. No parameter is fitted and then renamed as a prediction; the models' outputs are generated and judged directly. The paper cites DeepSeek-AI technical reports (references [10], [11]) only as background on the model family, not as load-bearing evidence for the comparison, and the author does not rely on a self-citation chain or an imported uniqueness theorem. The weaknesses that do exist are validity concerns rather than circularity: Section III (Test cases) states the study switched to Codeforces only after manually created test cases 'failed to reveal significant differences,' so the benchmark was selected partly because it produced divergence, and Section V admits missing data sources and resource constraints. Those are selection-bias and reproducibility threats to the generalization of 'DeepSeek consistently exhibited superior performance,' but they do not make any step of the derivation equivalent to its own input. Because the correctness verdicts are externally grounded, the appropriate circularity score is 0.
Assumptions & free parameters
free parameters (3)
- Maximum attempts per problem =
3
- Number of contest problems used =
7
- Number of simple tasks used =
10
assumptions (4)
- domain assumption Online judge 'Accepted' verdicts are a valid proxy for code correctness.
- domain assumption Pylint and Flake8 issue counts measure code quality and readability.
- domain assumption The two models were prompted and run under comparable conditions.
- ad hoc to paper The three-attempt cap does not bias the comparison.
Cite this review
Pith. "Pith review of ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek: A Comparative Study on AI-Based Code Generation." pith.science (2026). https://pith.science/paper/IKG6X7MR
@misc{pith2026250218467,
author = {Pith},
title = {Pith review of: ChatGPT vs. DeepSeek: A Comparative Study on AI-Based Code Generation},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://pith.science/paper/IKG6X7MR}},
note = {Machine review of arXiv:2502.18467}
}
read the original abstract
Background: AI-powered code generation, fueled by Large Language Models (LLMs), is revolutionizing software development. Models like OpenAI's Codex and GPT-4, alongside DeepSeek, leverage vast code and natural language datasets. However, ensuring code quality, correctness, and managing complex tasks remains challenging, necessitating thorough evaluation. Methodology: This research compares ChatGPT (version o1) and DeepSeek (version R1) for Python code generation using online judge coding challenges. It evaluates correctness (online judge verdicts, up to three attempts), code quality (Pylint/Flake8), and efficiency (execution time/memory usage). Results: DeepSeek demonstrated higher correctness, particularly on algorithmic tasks, often achieving 'Accepted' on the first attempt. ChatGPT sometimes requires multiple attempts or failures. ChatGPT encountered fewer issues, used comparable or slightly less memory, consumed less execution times and wrote fewer lines of code. Conclusion: DeepSeek exhibited superior correctness in Python code generation, often requiring fewer attempts, suggesting an advantage in algorithmic problem-solving. Both models showed almost similar efficiency in execution time and memory use. Finally, this research provides insights for developers choosing AI coding assistants and informs future AI-driven software development research.
Figures
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
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Reviewed August 9, 2026 · model on record in the stance chip above.
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