Chinese ChatGPT Rival DeepSeek Harness Hits 1.54M Users

Open-source DeepSeek Harness reached 1.54 million daily active users in less than three months after its release.

The figure, posted by the company on the social network X, marks a rapid climb from about 271,000 daily active users at the end of September (Mehr), shortly after DeepSeek shipped a desktop build, to the 1.54 million reported on November 4.

Autonomous agents and a plugin-driven architecture

DeepSeek, a Chinese startup that previously drew attention for its low-cost R1 reasoning model, is positioning Harness as infrastructure for autonomous AI agents that go beyond conventional chat. The company describes these agents as capable of writing and rewriting code, analysing files and browsing the web with minimal human supervision. DeepSeek presents Harness as a direct competitor to services from firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

According to DeepSeek's published metrics, Harness processes about 92 trillion tokens per day. The company estimates the share per active user at roughly 60 million tokens, a statistic that highlights the steep computational demands of these new agent workflows.

To build an ecosystem around Harness, DeepSeek has launched an official plugin store and is offering developer support packages that include free tokens and technical assistance. The platform is plugin-first by design: DeepSeek reports that more than 35,000 plugins have been created on Harness, and nearly 60 percent of users have built at least one add-on on the platform.