OpenCode vs Claude Code: open source vs Anthropic's agent

OpenCode vs Claude Code at a glance

When comparing OpenCode vs Claude Code, the core difference comes down to openness and provider lock-in: OpenCode is a free agent you can point at any model provider, while Claude Code is Anthropic's paid, Claude-only tool with a broader set of official apps and integrations. The table below breaks down how they compare side by side.

Open source vs proprietary

OpenCode is released under the MIT license at github.com/anomalyco/opencode, so you can read the source, fork it, self-host it, and wire it up to whatever model provider you want. Its configuration lives in opencode.json in your project directory or globally at ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json, and it includes a full-access build agent, a read-only plan agent for code exploration, and a @general subagent.

Claude Code is proprietary software with about 154,000 GitHub stars at github.com/anthropics/claude-code, where the license states Anthropic PBC reserves all rights under Anthropic's Commercial Terms of Service. The agent only speaks the Anthropic Messages API format (along with Bedrock and Vertex formats), and Anthropic does not support routing it to non-Claude models through any gateway.

Models and logins

• OpenCode connects to 75+ LLM providers through the AI SDK and Models.dev, and it also runs local models such as lmstudio/google/gemma-3n-e4b through LM Studio.
• You can sign into OpenCode directly with a ChatGPT Plus or Pro account, GitHub Copilot, or GitLab Duo (which is experimental and requires GitLab Premium or Ultimate).
• Any custom OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions endpoint works in OpenCode through the @ai-sdk/openai-compatible npm package, while endpoints that use /v1/responses need @ai-sdk/openai instead.
• Earlier releases of OpenCode bundled plugins for Claude Pro and Max accounts, but those plugins no longer ship as of version 1.3.0.
• Claude Code is restricted to Claude models out of the box, though Claude Code Router is an open-source, MIT-licensed proxy that routes Claude Code requests to other providers unofficially.

Pricing compared

OpenCode itself is free, so you only pay whatever your chosen model provider charges. If you want built-in billing from the OpenCode team, you can use OpenCode Zen to pay as you go at cost with zero markup (you add a $20 balance plus a $1.23 card processing fee), or subscribe to OpenCode Go for a curated set of agentic coding models at $10 a month, Go Plus at $40 a month, or Go Teams at $20 per member a month.

Claude Code is not included in Claude Free, so you need a paid plan or an API account to run it; see our full breakdown of Claude Code pricing. Subscriptions start with Claude Pro at $20 a month ($17 a month when billed yearly at $200 up front), step up to Claude Max 5x at $100 a month and Max 20x at $200 a month (both billed monthly only, and including $100 or $200 in monthly Claude Platform API credits), or you can connect an Anthropic Console account and pay per token at standard API rates like $4 per 1M input tokens and $20 per 1M output tokens for Claude Opus 5.5, or $2 and $10 for Claude Sonnet 5.5.

Which one to pick

• Pick Claude Code if you want Anthropic's own agent with Claude usage bundled in and official surfaces across the terminal CLI, VS Code, JetBrains, desktop apps, web at claude.ai/code, mobile, Slack, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI, all sharing CLAUDE.md, settings, and MCP servers.
• Pick OpenCode if you want to mix models from several different providers or run local models on your own machine.
• Pick OpenCode if you already pay for ChatGPT Plus or GitHub Copilot, since it signs in with both out of the box.
• Pick OpenCode if your team needs an MIT-licensed, auditable open-source alternative to Claude Code.

Run your subscriptions inside OpenCode

Because OpenCode accepts any OpenAI-compatible provider, you can use Plan2API to turn the AI subscriptions you already pay for into a single endpoint for OpenCode. Once you connect Claude Pro or Max, ChatGPT (through Codex), Google AI Pro or Ultra (through Antigravity), and Kimi Code plans at plan2api.com/connect, you get a p2a_ API key to send in an Authorization: Bearer header to https://api.plan2api.com/v1, giving you access to models like claude/claude-opus-5-5, openai/gpt-6.1-sol, gemini/gemini-4-argon-high, and kimi/k3 without per-token billing from Plan2API.

Plan2API Free costs $0 with no card required and covers 1 connected subscription, 2 API keys, and 50 chat requests a day (resetting at 00:00 UTC). If you want to combine multiple accounts, Plan2API Pro is $12 a month (or $99 a year) for 3 connected subscriptions, 10 API keys, and no daily request cap, while Scale is $29 a month (or $249 a year) for 25 connected subscriptions.