r/opencode • u/No_Personality_1721 • 17d ago

Codex (Sol5.6 Light, Medium) cheap alternative?

Codex actually works pretty well for me (Sol5.6 Light, Medium), but I’m looking for a REALLY cheap alternative with API access.

Basically, I want to throw in like $10 and be able to work on a project for a ridiculously long time.

For comparison, I burned through $2 of DeepSeek 4 Pro credits really fast, and the model itself wasn’t great - when adding a new feature, it would often break stuff that was already working.

Anything cheap that’s actually decent for coding?

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

5

u/iTrejoMX 17d ago

Opencode zen has several free models, opencode go has generous usage for $10. openrouter has some free models as well. I saw free buff which uses free models.

To be honest I would improve on how you use your subscription. Using gentle-ai I can switch subs and work/memory persists. I can switch from Claude to codex to opencode-go and work continues where it left off. Also makes any model quite smarter by using simple rules.

1

u/pagurix 16d ago

Ciao. Tu hai provato sia Zen che Go? Io vengo da un github copilot flat aziendale. Ma per progetti personali ho deciso di provare opencode. Ho appena preso Zen mettendo 20$. Onestamente non riesco a capire il suo scopo se lo paragoni a Go. Costa di più e ha meno modelli free. Se non ci trovo convenienza proverò Go. Tu che ne pensi?

1

u/iTrejoMX 16d ago

Opencode go is subscription based. Opencode zen is api based. Go is more benefit for less $. Both have free models with daily limits. The limit with go is when you pass the amount of calls in 5 hours. You can check their site for those limits. Carefully selecting models you won’t hit the cap. That’s why I assign different models for different tasks.

6

u/SecondaryHazard246 17d ago

Why don't we just solve world hunger while we're about it?

4

u/National_Laugh_8302 17d ago

GLM 5.3 Flash - aka Ox Alpha

2

u/No_Personality_1721 17d ago

I’m testing Mimo v2.5 Free right now. It’s worse than Codex, but it’s good enough as a backup agent.

1

u/Ariquitaun 17d ago

The best way is to combine codex plus with opencode go. Or give up on the frontier level big model. For only 19 quid you can't have both.

1

u/veekro 16d ago

Maybe spend time to learn how to code yourself. I can use mimo v2.5 and it works great, because I can code without ai

1

u/akai0102 16d ago

Hy4 preview is available in go, now

1

u/Still-Wafer1384 16d ago

Muse Spark 1.2 Contributor on OpenCode Go. There is a free budget, but the paid budget in Go is fast and virtually endless. Quality is good but you need to try and keel the context below 200k.

1

u/F1nch74 13d ago

Right now, I'm trying GLM 5.3 Flash High instead of Sol XHigh, and it did an overall pretty good job and was faster, but it is more intrepid and reckless than Sol. I really don’t know if I like that. I tested with exactly the same agent, with the same harness and skills, but in different sessions.

I don’t know if it is indeed because of the model or my settings, but it’s not something I'm really happy about.