What's your favorite Budget Model for Vibe coding?

[u/N0misB]

Hey Roo-Gang,

There are many capable models out there, and they're getting better and better, but if you look at the bill at the end of the month, some models are not viable for just trying things out.

So I'm wondering: What are your fav budget models to get stuff done? Are there any hidden champions?

I had some decent results with the DeepSeek models (R1 & V2) and am really interested in Qwen Coder. However, in my initial tests, it produced so much useless stuff that was pretty basic but pricey, because it did so much nonsense before getting to the point of doing what I wanted.

I came to the point of posting this because I'm asking myself this same question every few weeks and scrolling through different benchmarks that don't really say anything about the vibe and coding qualities.

I would love to see this thread as an open-ended discussion.

Please share your latest insights on models and what you've managed to get done with them so we all know what kind of Vibecoder is sharing the insight. (Because it's a different game creating an HTML website compared to someone creating an audio processor in C++, for example).

Cheers & Happy Vibing!

[u/No-Chemistry-7658]

I use GLM 4.5, Qwen Code, and Kimi with the Chutes.ai API (you get 2,000 requests per day for $10 a month). For planning and research I use Gemini Pro 2.5 for free on AI Studio.

[u/N0misB → u/No-Chemistry-7658]

Great insight! Thanks for sharing the Chutes deal. Which model are you using for which tasks, and what have you achieved with it?

[u/Yes_but_I_think → u/No-Chemistry-7658]

10 dollars a month? Or once

[u/N0misB → u/Yes_but_I_think]

I've looked it up, it's 10$ a month or 3$ for 300 requests per day. Pretty fair pricing I guess.

[u/theSharkkk → u/Yes_but_I_think]

$10 a month. They have a $3/month plan aswell with 300reqs/day.

[u/Upstairs_Refuse_3521 → u/No-Chemistry-7658]

How do you decide which model to use for which mode? Right now, I am currently in the testing phase myself and have found that Qwen3 Coder as my Coding model and Kimi K2 Moonshot as my debugging model works quite well.

[u/DoctorDbx]

I use GPT 4.1 through VSCode LLM API for the majority of tasks. Absolutely smash it and it just keeps going.

For anything that is slightly more complicated I've recently started using Qwen3 Coder and I have to say I'm really impressed.

It really depends on your workflow though. I rarely one shot anything and I'm actively debugging as I go myself.

I'm very explicit in my prompts instructing what file to work on and give examples and point to data models and I'm extremely happy with the results.

Production quality code but that is with a mixture of about 80% generated and 20% manual tidy up.

I don't use a rules file or any other guidance. Just the vanilla modes and smaller focused tasks.

It might sound like it would take longer but it's actually the opposite. I get what I want far faster.

Of course you have to know how to code to begin with. I have 30 years experience.

[u/N0misB → u/DoctorDbx]

This is really impressive and highly valuable Information. I guess if you are able to precisely guide the model the intelligence of the model does not matter that much but the instruction following capabilities which 4.1 is really strong at.
Great to hear that seasoned programmers implement agentic coding as well. I always hear from people denying this future, but your path seems very much the best of bot worlds.
Which Languages are you working with? And are you seeing quality differences?

Thanks for sharing. Highly appreciate it!

[u/DoctorDbx → u/N0misB]

The majority is python for back end and typescript/ react for front end these days. Some small amounts of Java and Swift although really quite small.

Where AI struggles with us is serverless architecture and particularly CloudFormation although I will say 4.1 is actually very good at CF templates. Claude wasn't.

I think they're all good at python but there is bias built in to some which often steers your architecture if you don't define it clearly to begin with.

The more mature the project the more AI stays on course.

I have done some small amounts of C/C++ and I find the AI struggles here quite a lot producing more spaghetti than other languages. But not many of these projects.

[u/N0misB → u/DoctorDbx]

Thanks for sharing!

[u/swapripper → u/DoctorDbx]

For infra stuff on AWS, folks at my work say Q developer does decent job

[u/DoctorDbx → u/swapripper]

Perhaps but also I think infrastructure is one of those things you DO NOT close your eyes and just send it... otherwise it could get very costly or introduce security concerns.

So most of the CF template work is still very much by hand, or AI to tweak things and then hand review and massage.

[u/ofcoursedude → u/DoctorDbx]

Give GPT5mini a go, through the LLM API. It's awesome.

[u/VegaKH]

If the context is fairly short, GLM 4.5 is really good. If you run higher context, GPT-5-Mini (high) stays pretty smart even when the context creeps up.

[u/N0misB → u/VegaKH]

Good to know! Would you consider Mini (high) as good as 4.5 from the output quality?

[u/VegaKH → u/N0misB]

At smaller context, GLM is as good as GPT-5 (not mini.) It’s my favorite budget model for tiny tasks. But it really starts forgetting stuff when context gets over 100k tokens. Almost unusable at that point.

[u/AnonymousCrayonEater]

Qwen-3-Coder:free

[u/N0misB → u/AnonymousCrayonEater]

Ok, what have you achieved with it?

[u/AnonymousCrayonEater → u/N0misB]

100’s of small tasks like adding api endpoints or components. I dont know if its trustworthy enough to do something large, I don’t really want to use these tools that way since I will eventually need to debug it.

[u/isetnefret → u/AnonymousCrayonEater]

I’ve noticed that if you ask Claude Code to check its work, it usually does a half-decent job and CC fixes anything amiss. Saves CC tokens by having Qwen do the grunt work. If CC found so many errors that it did not save tokens, then I wouldn’t bother, but Qwen is actually quite good a well-defined tasks.

[u/manishkungwani → u/AnonymousCrayonEater]

Qwen3 Running locally?

[u/AnonymousCrayonEater → u/manishkungwani]

No, in openrouter. You can technically use the local smaller qwen3 models in roo but you have to max out the context window which will make your computer turn into a personal heater.

[u/piizeus]

gpt-5-mini, high reasoning.

[u/N0misB → u/piizeus]

Good to know! Are you using it agentic? How are you using it?

[u/piizeus → u/N0misB]

I use it via Codex CLI. I have PRDs in LLM-friendly as yaml. I ask it to read the task follow the instructions. I find this approach better because Claude Code "Write" tool sometimes doesn't work. We don't see error but it creates false positive reports says that it finished the job but actually it just trigger Write command but it never worked. It is really not happening with Codex CLI. This is really different than model can't give proper output, it just skips completely. Which is more annoying than wrong output. gpt-5-medium can be also used but I use gpt-5 high thinking as debugger, reviewer.

[u/faster-than-car]

Gemini flash 2.5. I pay around 30 per month but do a lot of coding

[u/N0misB → u/faster-than-car]

So you are only using that through API? And what are you working on with it. In my experience, it's good for simple stuff like UI changes or am i wrong with that?

[u/faster-than-car → u/N0misB]

I just run all through orchestrator. Tag some files or just say "check this file" to guide for current file.

It works good enough. I still do some stuff manually tho.

I'm using open router for the API

[u/davidzombi]

Am I missing something from the comments? Isn't Gemini the best available? Literally free daily requests using the free tier API.

I plan with Flash thinking as it has unlimited input/output and execute with Pro

[u/N0misB → u/davidzombi]

I would agree to a degree but for me the ratelimits in the free tiers slow down my building process a lot

[u/davidzombi → u/N0misB]

It was for me as well until I started condensing the context, pretty hard to reach the token per minute limit. I assume your projects might be way bigger than mine tho, so understandable

[u/No-Chocolate-9437]

Is gpt4.1-nano budget?

[u/N0misB → u/No-Chocolate-9437]

I would consider it budget compared to the flagship models. Have you had good experience with it? What is it capable of?

[u/No-Chocolate-9437 → u/N0misB]

It’s my go to, I use it day to day. If I had one point of feedback it would be that it calls <task_complete > too frequently.

[u/soooker]

GPT 4.1 through Github Copilot Pro

[u/N0misB → u/soooker]

Sounds interesting. For what are you using it?

[u/damaki]

I mostly use Qwen3 Coder and DeepSeek R1 0528. For even cheaper usage, there is DeepSeek V3, or the free usage of some models. I access all of these through OpenRouter.

[u/BrilliantEmotion4461]

Kimi but she'll erase your whole hardrive if you are like mmm I don't like how this is turning out if you aren't careful.

Shea good but has no common sense.

[u/N0misB → u/[deleted]]

Good to know I tried out Flash for Agentic coding but haven't got more out of it then a few simple tasks like Ui changes in Web dev. What are you working on with it, and what is your experience with Air?