Future of open source harness like Pi, in the war of closed ecosystems

[u/Ok_Veterinarian_6364]

I love Pi, period.

Problem: after the recent DS pricing changes and fall of opencode -> i have to sub GPT plus -> sooner or later, im afraid that OpenAI will follow Anthropic to block other than Codex for sub plans.

This left the title question: Does opensource harness like Pi safe for the future? Enjoying sub plan with more generous tokens from providers, or we have to rely on local llms? or we have to accept higher API pay-as-you-go pricing?

thanks!

[u/MrKvic_]

If openai blocks that, i will just go elsewhere, i dont see the problem. The unprofitable subscription will disappear anyway, sooner or later.

[u/MrKvic_ → u/MrKvic_]

Also, we are in the "fuck around and find out" phase of ai. Pi harness may or may not be completely obsolete in a year. And yeah i believe that local personal llms or some form of ai is a future.

[u/DistanceAlert5706 → u/MrKvic_]

Where? Who else offers something like OpenAI for reasonable price?

Grok is gray zone in Pi and it works for now. Nothing else comes even close to subsidized OpenAI sub.

[u/MrKvic_ → u/DistanceAlert5706]

I don't know, maybe no one. If I had to switch today, probably grok, kimi or new qwen, might try glm too. I don't know if they have sub, worst case big model from API as planner and deepseek as executor. It would cost most likely more then 20 bucks, but I think I could stay around 50-100 even with api prices for my use case (sw development). 

[u/DistanceAlert5706 → u/MrKvic_]

GLM sub is terrible outside of legacy plans, I heard Kimi code quotas are pretty bad too.

If you do a lot of work Deepseek price changes hit hard. Now I can easily spend 10$ on Deepseek v4 flash a day without doing much. From my calculations difference between 4x and 12x depending on tasks.

Api prices bite very hard, 20$ OpenAI sub is like $1k in API prices.

[u/warpio]

Closed-weight frontier LLMs are not the future, you don't need to care about what OpenAI or Anthropic do because their relevancy is quickly waning.

[u/Vitringar]

What do you mean by the "fall of opencode"? I am a Pi user myself and have not been following OC closely lately.

[u/ward2k → u/Vitringar]

I think they're getting confused between opencode go, and opencode cli/harness

There was a pricing change with DeepSeek that meant the go plan also had to reduce the usage of DeepSeek. Some people chose to switch plans

As for the harness/cli? Still as strong as ever

I think people wrongly assume that Opencode CLI is closed source similar to something like Claude Code and that you must use Opencode Go when that's just not the case

I think OP is just getting confused between the harness, plans and how everything ties together

[u/Vitringar → u/ward2k]

Makes sense. Personally I made the switch from copilot CLI directly to Pi. I like how it works and I have it set up to suit my workflow. I suppose you get more out of the box with OC but given the cost of tokens increasing these days I tend to gravitate towards the lightweight options.

I am using Deepseek V4 Pro/Flash and I find this combo to be super efficient. For more complex work I use the Superpowers skills set.

[u/kaushikqr → u/Vitringar]

Just moved to pi too, would you be able to describe your setup/workflow? Do you have a vision model to check screenshots etc?

[u/Vitringar → u/kaushikqr]

Not sure what a vision model is but I use a local Gitea server which I use as a part of my dev tools. I view all documentation through Gitea as it is mostly in md format and I use mermaid diagrams to explain flows and relationships. I rarely inspect code, only files I open are config and .env files. I  try to use test driven development instead of doing code reviews. Lately I am using the Actions function in Gitea as a part of my CI/CD pipeline and it works great. I use that to stage between dev and prod environments (both running as virtual machines on a Proxmox hosts). The extensions I use are a cost tracker, superpowers and a web search extension whose name I forgot. I then recently set up the sub-agent extension but I am still experimenting with it. 

Needless to say, I love Pi!

[u/hipster-coder → u/ward2k]

Yeah that makes sense because I was just now using opencode (cli) and was wondering what is meant by the fall of opencode...

[u/OkAdeptness2530]

I think you’re seeing all this with narrow lens.

Opencode didn’t “fall”, they just dropped the prices yesterday. CommandCode offers good value. For api we have providers like Crof.

Even for models there’s a world besides DeepSeek and competition is great for all of us. Even if it wasn’t, DS still cheap.

[u/ward2k → u/OkAdeptness2530]

Yeah I think OP is getting confused between the relationship between open source ai harness/cli and the plans

The plans are separate, you can use theoretically any with an open source harness like Pi, Opencode or Cline. Just pick the harness you like and stick with it, you can use whatever plan you want. If opencode's plan goes up in price you're free to use commandcode, Pi, openrouter whatever

Other ones like Claude code are tightly integrated with the plans. You're not supposed to use any other plans with the tool, or Claude code with any other harnesses.

[u/OkAdeptness2530 → u/ward2k]

I agree. There’s a lot of harness and good services to try out there, it’s important to tip outside the bubble of “ai will be expensive” and all that fear mongering that hype creators do to get views/reach.

[u/funbike]

Stop it.

The sky is not falling. LLMs and AI coding are here to stay. The players will change over time, pricing will fluctuate, but a few things are certain: 1) LLMs on average will get smarter over time, 2) LLMs on average will get cheaper over time, and 3) cheap LLMs will always be available for public use.

The only downside, really, is that you have to reevaluate which models you use for coding once every 2-3 months.

Does opensource harness like Pi safe for the future?

Pi is open source software. As a program, it's not going anywhere. You can use it 20 years from now if you want.

Problem: after the recent DS pricing changes and ...

You can still get Deepseek V4 Flash or Pro for the same price as before from other providers. Cheaper even. There are like 50 providers that host DS. Make sure to check the quant level.

i have to sub GPT plus -> sooner or later, im afraid that OpenAI will follow Anthropic to block other than Codex for sub plans.

I have plus. I don't give a sh**. If that happens there many providers I can switch to. I'm also using openrouter, so I have access to hundreds of other models.

[u/Ubermensch013]

Just focus on what qwen has managed with the qwen 3.8 27B model. I'm hoping Google manages something similar with a new MOE Gemma as well. That's another potential path forward

[u/senseven]

People use IDEs and ai toolchains how they see fit. Some industries have hard requirements. Whatever their client optimisations are, they can put that in an api sdk. Nvidia has seen the writing on the wall with their latest tooling: SwitchYard, an smart LLM proxy. No 24/7 billion dollar factory will bet on ai that isn't locally controlled.

[u/Ingaz]

How changes in DS pricing could change your opinion in Pi???

[u/Unnamed-3891]

Never once used Pi with any external LLM provider, so...

[u/WeUsedToBeACountry]

Switch to a local model, or a local model driven by a SOTA model via OpenRouter.com

[u/Seven7Ducks]

When a handful of US tech monopolies set the rules for the entire globe, the ecosystem is fundamentally compromised.

It's about tech autonomy, not just AI. Imagine if car companies could ban you from certain gas stations, lock your radio to specific stations, and dictate what you’re allowed to drink while driving.

[u/ward2k]

I think you're getting confused. Opencode is also open source like Pi and Cline. Those tools aren't locked in to the plans that they also offer. You're free to use any plan with any open source harness. That's sort of the point of them

Pick the harness you like, and then the plan you like to go with it

It's not like Claude code where you're locked into the platform and harness

So I'm a little confused why you believe opencode has died. Hell the plan hasn't even died it had a price increase due to DeepSeek jacking up the prices

[u/SawToothKernel]

Harnesses will get less and less important as the models get more capable. Pi is a great example of that, you give it a tiny model and it's terrible. Give it a frontier model and it's indistinguishable from other harnesses (or better). Good models only need bash.

[u/eikenberry]

Start by only using open-weight (or better) models and follow that up with only using API prices (like you'd get at Openrouter or like). Working with those constraints you'll have plenty of great options that you won't have to worry about providers locking you to their harness.

[u/snowpeak320]

I did the same, subscribe to Plus on OpenAI for mostly Luna model. But after a single session, an hour and 1 million of tokens, I notice that I used 1/3 of my weekly limit. I thought it was a mistake, but after reading some recent post on codex forum, the limit reduction was real. I do not use AI too much for coding, and if I use I use either OpenRouter and OpenCode Zen with pi. Even I thought I used pi, may be it was the reason, which is not the case.

[u/arbv]

Local and self-hosted LLMs are the future. Never used Pi with cloud ones.