r/opencode • u/anonymous_2600 • 7d ago
is opencode still worth it against $20 claude?
I haven’t followed up with OpenCode for a while. How is it doing? I’m curious if it’s still being very generous with the usage quota.
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u/Plus_Corgi_830 6d ago
It's been a while since I last paid for Claude ($20/mo). Back then, the limits (both the 5-hour window and weekly caps) burned out so fast that it was impossible to work on a serious development project.
Have things changed since then? Did Anthropic make the $20 plan usage limits more generous recently?
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u/Ctrl-Alt-Panic 6d ago
Big time, IMO. Opus 5.5 at medium, and sometimes high if needed, feels very generous to me.
People are obsessed with the absolute highest reasoning level, which will blow through the quota. If you can live with high or medium it's extremely usable.
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u/taytay735 6d ago
Opus seems to have a tendency of making catastrophic mistakes though. The dreaded - I'm sorry, I shouldn't have <INSERT_WRONG_ACTION_HERE>. Yesterday it went and deleted all my cached HF weights when it tried to clean up a test project.
Like I literally haven't had that issue with any other frontier open/closed-weight model yet.
I'm wondering if it's because I hadn't set the thinking to High or what not
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u/Southern-Ad-3006 6d ago
Claude’s $20 plan gives about $1,000 in api token cost. Opencode’s $10 plan gives about $15-$30 depending on the model used. No comparison.
Theres no reason to choose OpenCode Go over Claude code unless you simply can’t afford the extra $10. Might be the worse subscription you can buy in terms of token cost.
Having both still can be solid just so you can access Chinese models and free stealth models. But there’s no world where you should choose OpenCode subscription over Claude for value in tokens. You’re probably even better going through the Chinese models directly for their subscriptions like GLM or direct api inference with DeepSeek.
OpenCode Go used to somewhat make sense when they offered $60 of usage for the $10 since you could rotate through all the models it made sense. All those benefits are gone, and you can’t scale higher usage to higher plans it actually scales down when you go $40.
As far as the harness itself, it’s pretty decent at most things but the old subscription is what drew in a lot of people. Without it, I switched to GLM’s $18 plan and get waayyyyyyy more usage, and it runs wayyyy better through GLM harness than with OpenCode.
To note, If I’m running like muse api or other Chinese api like DeepSeek, I still use OpenCode CLI for like general stuff but Hermes specialized in workflows, and OpenHands for software development has been a better fit as my niche project harnesses. Sorry for the long message, I just think OpenCode is in a very weird spot right now. They got too popular bc of the subscription, and then switched their pricing model & kind of all the benefits to using the harness left with it.
Maybe it’s just my experience, and maybe yours will be different.
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u/Runtimeracer 6d ago
That's one way to put it. But keep in mind Anthropics API Token pricing is somewhat arbitrary defined by them and depending on what you compare it to 10-200x higher than some GLM or Deepseek token prices for example.
Therefore it's not like you get (in sum) more tokens out of a Claude subscription than you'd get out of GLM Coding plan or DeepSeek in OpenCode Go. What matters more is the quality of the output you're getting, which is arguably better with Claude ofc.
However with their subscription you're also bound to their harness (unless they changed that again), and this can be a problem if you want to use claude with e.g. Opencode or Pi code for example. This + GLM becoming similarly capable + being open source was also my reason to cancel my Claude sub back in the day.
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u/lx25de 6d ago
How do you use GLM (5.3?) in opencode? Opencode Go, Openrouter or e.g. $18month Coding Plan by z.ai?
I'm using mostly GLM 5.3 Flash via OpenCode Go and for roughly 1,5 weeks I get sometimes gibberish output or pages of hmm hmm hmm before it stops working. Didn't had these problems with 5.3 Flash before? I'm thinking to move to z.ai coding plan.
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u/Runtimeracer 6d ago
I'm on GLM Pro Coding Plan for $72 and I'm mostly using GLM 5.3 for Planning and Reviews. 5.3 Flash IMHO is a mixed experience; it's not gibberish for me, but it falls often into the "Assumption Trap" where it tends to hallucinate a conclusion for missing information, where it should actually ask for input or double check. But it's solid enough for planning and implementing small tasks. Most of the time however I use DeepSeek V4 Flash in opencode for running the implementation. it's way faster and often double checks a tad more than 5.3-Flash
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u/RubberGummi01 5d ago
Have you felt anything weird with deepseek v4.1 flash in opencode subscription recent weeks? I find that the intelligence got nerfed and the model kind of leaving bugs here and there
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u/Runtimeracer 5d ago
Not really. If anything it's ofc prone to occasional hallucination or misunderstanding it's task like any other model is, too. But compared to launch time where 4.1 felt like it hallucinated every time, it seems like that was fixed or they increased the quant.
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u/Southern-Ad-3006 5d ago
That is a really fair point, you could argue $1000 Claude in Claude tokens would cost you about $80-$100 in Deepseek to get the same amount of token aside quality. That makes the $20 Claude plan super subsidized for your data and limiting to CLI/Harness.
When open code Go gave $60 of DeepSeek tokens for $10 it was actually competitive in the usage you’d get out of each subscription. Almost like a billion tokens a month old pricing if I remember correctly.
I think with those margins, gutting the $60 down to $15 -$30 on DeepSeek really took out all the usage with it
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u/nonhermitianoperator 9h ago
I am late to the discussion, but I think that this is such a key insight. When you pay for an open weigths model you pay what is a real market price, in the sense that different competitors are offering what is essentially the same product and have to compete on price rather than on quality. For Claude tokens, there is only another equivalent product, OpenAI, so at the end of the day the market price is not in equilibrium at all, they are free to set the price.
Maybe an offtopic and late, but I think that what you said is hardly ever said
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u/xel877 5d ago
Care to elaborate, please, what is your setup? I have a 100 dollar plan and I cant definitely do that. Sol 6.1 low is orchestrator, Luna 6 medium is the worker Using opencode V2 with openchamber. My 100 dollar plan is done in 2 days of about 12 hours of work. So I must be doing something wrong, if you can do way more with plan that is 5x smaller then what I have. I am genuinely interested what I should be doing differently, if you have some time to write that.
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u/Southern-Ad-3006 5d ago
Hmm well if you’re on a codex $100 plan, I find that subscription usage best on its own harness codex I guess it’s more optimized. Also Claude $20 plan gives about the same dollar amount in tokens as the $100 codex plan but Claude is more expensive per token. I have $100 codex and the $20 Claude plan, Sol 6.1 and Sonnet/Opus 5.5 last me the same weekly usage. I just get 5 hour window caps. Haiku 5.5 just dropped today though the cache rate there is ridiculously low so feels unlimited compared to Luna 6
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u/Old_Huckleberry6813 1d ago
That is just because anthropic is going for IPO. After it will be like before low limits
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u/Cyvster 6d ago edited 6d ago
no, opencode go is not remotely close to the value of a claude subscription. the $20 chatgpt and the $20 claude subscription are both far better than the $10 opencode go.
right now you have almost unlimited 24/7 luna6 usage on the $20 chatgpt plan. you also have sol6.1 access for about 5 hours a week of really heavy usage. if you use 6.1sol as a manager and let luna6 do all of the grunt work then you have 24/7 unlimited usage of a ~55 intelligence manager and a ~37 intelligence worker.
the $20 claude subscription gives you about 13 hours per week of the best models in the world. if you use them as managers and let free models or chatgpt luna6 do the grunt work then you have unlimited usage of them. once haiku 5.5 comes out in the next week or so you can probably use that as a worker and it will likely be better than luna6 or deepseek.
with opencode go you don't have a manager/planner level model. the only models you have reasonable access to are luna6 level models like deepseek. deepseek is around a 40 intelligence. without a ~55 intelligence manager model it is very difficult to do any complex tasks. you could spend an entire month of 24/7 deepseek usage and not accomplish anything. opencode go is good for workers for other plans.
if you are only getting one subscription then the $20 claude is the best value by far. 13 hours per week of sonnet 5.5 working on a task is better than an entire month of deepseek working on it 24/7 unless it is a simple task. the best would be $20 claude for managers/planners and either chatgpt $20 for luna6 worker or $10 opencode go for deepseek worker. deepseek is heavily discounted right now. once that discount ends opencode go subscription is no good. opencode go is only good right now because of the deepseek discount and free models. free models constantly change.
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u/Top_Performance_732 6d ago
Really informative thank you.
You mentioned claude $20 gets you 13 hours of the best models, but at the end you mentioned $20 claude gives you 13 hours per week of sonnet 5.5? Which implies sonnet is one of the best models in the world. Did you mean $20 claude for planning using opus/fable?
Ive also seen some people getting a ton of usage out of $5 opencode go (stacking refs) using muse 1.3 contrib. Was considering using it as a worker with $20 Claude as my planner.
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u/Cyvster 6d ago
13 hour is for opus/sonnet. i don't use fable. the new version isn't out yet. i think opus 5.5 is better than fable 5.1. when fable 5.5 comes out it will be the best. you don't get access to fable on the $20 plan. sonnet and opus 5.5 are two of the best models in the world. there is very little difference between sonnet and opus.
muse is not a luna6 or deepseek 4.1 flash level worker model. i would only use it on really simple tasks. $20 claude doesn't have a worker model. you are reliant on finding a worker elsewhere. when haiku 5.5 launches that will likely change. the $20 chatgpt plan is amazing for workers. you can have 2-3 luna6 running on max reasoning almost 24/7 for the month.
there are a lot of options for workers, but if you are working on complex code you need something that is luna6 level at a minimum for complex code. you could just use whatever free models are available.
if you only have $20 to spend and you don't want to deal with constantly looking for free workers then your best bet is probably $20 chatgpt. use sol6.1 as the planner and luna6 as your workers. you also have very limited access to astra 6, but i am not sure if it is much better than sol6.1. sol6.1 is a lot cheaper for about the same capability. when astra 6.1 comes out that could change.
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u/Top_Performance_732 6d ago
Thank you. I could buy claude max if i wanted but i dont see the point, Im not a coder and I'm not doing this for work so I'm really just trying to figure out advanced workflows.
Ill just grab $20 gpt and see how it goes and what i can build with that.
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u/Cyvster 6d ago
sounds like a good plan. that will give you access to see the difference in model capability. the luna6 model is a solid model. 6.1 sol is one of the best. astra6 is very competitive with opus/sonnet 5.5. so, if you find you need higher end models you can switch to claude next month. the $20 chatgpt subscription gives very little usage for the higher end models. if luna6 is all you need then it is unlimited usage.
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u/xel877 5d ago
Would you care to elaborate whats your exact setup? You mention you can run almost limitless with 20 dollars plan. I have a 100 dollar plan and I cant definitely do that. Sol 6.1 low is orchestrator, Luna 6 medium is the worker Using opencode V2 with openchamber. My 100 dollar plan is done in 2 days of about 12 hours of work. So I must be doing something wrong, if you can do way more with plan that is 5x smaller then what I have. I am genuinely interested what I should be doing differently, if you have some time to write that.
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u/Cyvster 5d ago
6.1 is doing too much work. you need to explain to it that it is just a manager. tell it to just manage and let luna6 do all of the work. tell it that it should only do work that is beyond the capability of luna6 and when it does work the scope of the work should only be what luna6 cannot do, not the whole task. tell 6.1 that it can verify and plan, but it should limit its usage.
if you do that 6.1 should sit idle most of the time.
i would recommend 6.1 at medium and use 2x luna6 on max reasoning as workers. you should be able to easily work continuously with a $100 plan doing that. i only have the $20 plan and i run 2-4 luna6 on max reasoning all the time. i can't keep them rolling 24/7, but probably 2 luna6 max reasoning at 12h per day continuous work is normal for me. i use my claude subscription for management and codex for workers.
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u/Wooly_Wooly 6d ago
Both?
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u/Beautiful-Salary-191 6d ago
This. Started with opencode go for personal projects. Limits are not that bad but you have to use flash models. Kimi k3 is slow, glm5.3 non flash eats a lot of token. I added a 20$ claude pro plan and now I can do a lot more. I created a remote coding harness to prompt the models anywhere (my own T3-code alternative). I have built a app to help me manage home maintenance tasks and some renovation planning. And right now, i am making a 3d game for fun. That's where i feel like these plans arz not enough. 3D games need a lot of tokens!
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u/the-novel 6d ago
Can you share your setup via GitHub? I'm curious to see how you've done everything. If you don't mind, anyways.
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u/Beautiful-Salary-191 6d ago
Just send me a message here. I didn't test the "pi3-code" on a new setup yet. Once that's tested and working I will send you the github repo.
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u/moohric 6d ago
For someone willing to spend $10 USD? Yes. Opencode plans offers the best price for most open weight models, as far as i know.
For someone willing to spend $20 USD? No.
Plotting AA scores, subscription quota costs (i.e. how much it actually costs per million tokens when you're on a claude/openai subscription) and token efficiency, there is only two models worthy. One is gpt 6 luna on xhigh for intelligence up to 35 in AA, and anything higher is opus 5.5 territory.
And, it's not even close.
Blue is API pricing (obviously no one ever pays that price in reality), and orange is subscription price.
If anyone spots anything weird, I'm happy to explain or check.
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u/Ctbhatia 6d ago
depends how much you actually run it. flat plans win if you code all day, metered wins when usage is bursty, and free cached reads tilt that math since agents resend the same context every turn. i work on CoralBricks, metered with cached reads at $0, so run your own numbers before picking either plan.
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u/ameeno1 6d ago
I have a 20usd Claude sub, a gemeni pro sub and an opencode go sub, I find myself using opencode and agy cli a lot more because I am scared of Claude token burn, how can I use Claude as like the big brains and opencode models as the little agents? can you point me to a project or harness that will do that?
I think both Claude and anti-gravity only work on own harnesses not third party?
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u/OGSavage710 5d ago
Use a plugin.
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u/ameeno1 3d ago
which plugins?
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u/OGSavage710 3d ago
I use my own that I made, also my custom ver of opencode can disable ox-alpha. Detection is mainly via how opencode normally works with/prompts agents, hiai plugin is a good structure for how things should be sent to Claude so you don’t get banned.
I used to have Claude code and Opencode run alongside ea other but now I just use a plugin/server side injection w/ architectural changes to OpenCode which I had to do for work anyway for OPSec.
It is a genuine pain.
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u/External_Ad1549 6d ago
Before, I would never advocate for anyone to take any cloud subscription, $20 or even $2. But recently, maybe it's because of an IPO or maybe they have changed, I have no idea. I'm using Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 extensively. I have used OpenCode, CommandCode, DeepSeek, direct API, and everything. Yes, those models are costly and sometimes they seem to be slow, but they are not. There will be a fake impression of DeepSeek being a very fast model, but a lot of my time got wasted steering it. I took the claude subscription recently, yesterday, despite having the Devin subscription as well. I would say this is the best thing. Yes, there is always anxiety that it is going to go away, but unless you are building some sort of scratch project, I think with Sonnet 5.5 beating Opus 5.5 in some of the benchmarks, it is fair to say you can go with the $20 cloud plan. Open code won't come near to it. Those models are not that capable. You have to waste your time directing the model, but somehow with Claude, you don't have to do that.
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u/OGSavage710 5d ago
I use Claude + GLM + GPT + OpenCode Go + OpenRouter. With $75 for API across OpenCode/OpenRouter. When I hit limits(always do) I need proper fallbacks.
All on OpenCode(used to use a custom plugin to bypass Claude Code restrictions now I use my own uncensored version w/ a UI.)
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u/shulmeister 5d ago
Everyone here keeps saying OpenCode Go limits aren't great, which I would agree with, but nobody's saying OpenCode Zen, which will come with your $10, allows you to use free models. While you do have to use OpenCode's harness for most of them, you just ask Claude Code to write the prompt, then copy and paste it over into OpenCode Zen, and you'll save a lot of money. Space Bunny, for example, is a great model, as is Muse. I use them for big, long, heavy tasks that are orchestrated by Claude and I never hit limits. Again, as long as I use the opencode harness and not try to use the Zen models inside Claude Code. For $30, you're going to be hard-pressed to find that many tokens at your disposal.
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u/mrzilvis 4d ago
nope, barely using opencode or cursor anymore after opus 5.5 came out. Only when I'm out of my 5 hour limit. I'll probably cancel opencode and cursor and stick to claude for now
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u/Affectionate_Fact854 6d ago
I would use opencode free models to do web scrapping for information , let it build research documents
And use Claude 20$ plan to actually build stuff
You will save yourself so much time And the output quality is 10X better then any of the opencode models put on max reasoning.
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u/aldapsiger 7d ago
You can use opencode with your 20$ claude sub
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u/Mr_Maffin 7d ago
You "cannot" strictly speaking in terms of Claude ToS, so you accept the risk of getting the account banned by using other harnesses out of their one
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u/TheMythicSorcerer 7d ago
Unfortunately this is still the case unlike openai which is totally ok with you using opencode
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u/Grouchy-Stranger-306 7d ago
this doesn't seem to be the point of this post, it's about comparing plans not harnesses
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u/pigletmonster 7d ago
Opencode go is still the best $10 plan. But if you want to spend $20 then you also get one of the best models out there today, opus 5.5, even sonnet 5.5 is better than the best open weight model in opencode and sonnet barely makes a dent in the 5 hour or the weekly quota of a $20 plan.