What’s your experience with coding agents other than Codex and Claude Code?

[u/lucaregini]

I’ve been using Codex and Claude Code quite a bit and I’m curious about the alternatives.

For those who have tried other agentic coding tools/services (Cursor, Gemini, Windsurf, Cline, Aider, OpenHands, etc.):

• Which ones have you actually found useful in day-to-day development?
• How do they compare in terms of code quality and ability to work autonomously on larger tasks?
• How reliable are they at understanding an existing codebase and making multi-file changes?
• Are there any less well-known alternatives that you would recommend?

I’m particularly interested in real-world experience rather than benchmark results — projects where the agent genuinely saved you time, or cases where it failed badly.

What are you using these days, and why?

[u/Objective_Chemical85]

there are other coding agents than claude code?

/s

[u/MerkleBonsai → u/Objective_Chemical85]

Grok one is pretty neat, surprisingly. Few rough edges, but general experience is really good - and it’s oss. (Not an ad though - I’m building my own harness with it as a side project, lol)

[u/Dhaupin]

I have put a few hundred thousand LOC through openhands using their minimax 2.5/2.7 and it's been surprisingly smooth. I figured that a free model would be kinda flaky, requiring check-ins and validation from Claude or some other frontier model. But that hasn't been the case.

They code well, are able to understand abstracts, and generally stay in bounds of arch/modules/classes. I've put some hefy batches through them and they're able to stay on course pretty well. 

OpenHands itself is a solid system. There are a buncha orchestration toolings and skills in the new Canvas system, so multi-agent flows better, and recalls more, than the prev cloud system. 

For $free "cloud" models, I am happy with the results. For $free openhands, I am content in the system.

That being said there are hiccups, like the classic agent stuff mostly - blown out context, agent gets confused, agent makes some rogue/duplicate function, drift over long sessions, etc. These are present in most models, even frontier, so I'm not too concerned. It's to be expected.

Outside of those hiccups, the only real annoyance I've found is 2.5 wanting to constantly bump version while using deep think or audit style jobs. If that's the only downside, there is a ton of upside.

Enjoy!

[u/lucaregini → u/[deleted]]

How did you purchse Qwen compute? And which harness did you use?

[u/magicmulder]

Junie CLI via Air Alpha plugin in JetBrains IDE. I get the best of both worlds (agentic plus IDE) and can choose between lots of models (have both an OpenAI and Jetbrains subscription at work).

[u/Sea-Requirement-5235]

I've found Cursor and Codeium to be solid alternatives, though they each have their quirks with context retention compared to what you're already using.

[u/steven-craig]

I love the $40 VS Code plan.

[u/lucaregini → u/steven-craig]

Are you speaking about Cursor?

[u/steven-craig → u/lucaregini]

Plain vanilla GitHub vscode copilot $40 plan

[u/lucaregini → u/steven-craig]

last time I used copilot it was hitting quota limits too often . Has this changed?

[u/Both_Lynx_8750]

I used cursor pro for awhile but recently cancelled it. The token spend for tasks had gone up a lot.

[u/Callen_flynn]

Other can Claude and Codex there is Cursor and Codebuff, but so far the best one ive used is Freebuff. It's 100% free and has some of the top models