--- title: Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet description: Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang argues that open-source and frontier AI models aren't competitors but represent two phases of the same lifecycle: expensive frontier... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet | daily.dev og:description: Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang argues that open-source and frontier AI models aren't competitors but represent two phases of the same lifecycle: expensive frontier... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/8o8sc5kBm.png og:image:alt: Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 4 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang argues that open-source and frontier AI models aren't competitors but represent two phases of the same lifecycle: expensive frontier models prove out use cases, which then migrate to cheaper open-source alternatives as they mature. Data from Vercel's AI gateway and OpenRouter supports this view — DeepSeek dominates token volume while Anthropic still captures the majority of token spend. Frontier labs like Anthropic appear insulated from open-source competition for now, as they continue to dominate early-stage, high-value deployments while open source takes over production workloads. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much more expensive is Anthropic's Opus 4.8 model compared to DeepSeek V4Flash per token? Opus 4.8 costs roughly 23 times more per token than DeepSeek V4Flash on OpenRouter, at about $1.37 per million tokens versus just 6 cents for V4Flash. Despite this price gap, DeepSeek V4Flash processes far more tokens weekly (5.3 trillion versus just over 2 trillion for Opus 4.8), though Opus likely still captures more total spending given the price difference. _Teams weighing frontier versus open-source model costs can track pricing shifts like these on daily.dev._ ### Is open source AI taking market share away from frontier labs like Anthropic? Not significantly, at least not yet. Anthropic still accounts for more than half of overall AI spend on Vercel's AI gateway even as open-source models like DeepSeek and Z.ai's GLM-5.2 have surged in token volume, with DeepSeek processing over a third of tokens on that platform. One theory holds that frontier labs keep owning early-stage discovery work while open source increasingly handles mature production use cases, so total frontier spend keeps growing even as it loses share proportionally. _Following how the frontier versus open-source AI split evolves helps teams planning model strategy on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Pentagon’s Anthropic problem is every enterprise’s AI problem](https://daily.dev/posts/the-pentagon-s-anthropic-problem-is-every-enterprise-s-ai-problem-zzbsluz0i) · The New Stack · 1 upvotes · 1 comments - [Anthropic now has more business customers than OpenAI, according to Ramp data](https://daily.dev/posts/anthropic-now-has-more-business-customers-than-openai-according-to-ramp-data-szoryezld) · TechCrunch · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic), [#deepseek](https://daily.dev/tags/deepseek) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm"},"datePublished":"2026-07-07T20:07:50.445Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T09:26:37.843Z","description":"Decagon CEO Jesse Zhang argues that open-source and frontier AI models aren't competitors but represent two phases of the same lifecycle: expensive frontier...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9129415b27ce129ecf3917eeb6c5d772?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9129415b27ce129ecf3917eeb6c5d772?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"open-source,llm,anthropic,deepseek","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Why the rise of open source AI isn’t hurting Anthropic … yet"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-the-rise-of-open-source-ai-isn-t-hurting-anthropic-yet-8o8sc5kbm#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much more expensive is Anthropic's Opus 4.8 model compared to DeepSeek V4Flash per token?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Opus 4.8 costs roughly 23 times more per token than DeepSeek V4Flash on OpenRouter, at about $1.37 per million tokens versus just 6 cents for V4Flash. Despite this price gap, DeepSeek V4Flash processes far more tokens weekly (5.3 trillion versus just over 2 trillion for Opus 4.8), though Opus likely still captures more total spending given the price difference. Teams weighing frontier versus open-source model costs can track pricing shifts like these on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Is open source AI taking market share away from frontier labs like Anthropic?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Not significantly, at least not yet. Anthropic still accounts for more than half of overall AI spend on Vercel's AI gateway even as open-source models like DeepSeek and Z.ai's GLM-5.2 have surged in token volume, with DeepSeek processing over a third of tokens on that platform. One theory holds that frontier labs keep owning early-stage discovery work while open source increasingly handles mature production use cases, so total frontier spend keeps growing even as it loses share proportionally. Following how the frontier versus open-source AI split evolves helps teams planning model strategy on daily.dev."}}]} ```