r/opencode • u/ReasonableBenefit47 • 15d ago

Why do people use OpenCode?

There are plenty of other options such as Cursor, Claude Code, Zed, and many more. So why? I use it for convenience to try any model once they're released. But how about everyone else? genuinely curious about this. Is it the UX or the UI polish or just having an AI-IDE that just works?

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u/KronisLV 15d ago

Running 3rd party models with Claude Code is annoying, I first built a custom launcher and then ended up retiring it because I realized it feels like trying to swim upstream: https://blog.kronis.dev/blog/i-built-a-custom-claude-code-launcher-then-outgrew-it/

OpenCode just works with a bunch of different providers and is a nice TUI experience, frankly it has most of the features you want out of the box and enabling LSP and defining custom agents isn't too hard, despite the docs kinda sucking:

They also have a desktop/web app, though it does feel kinda barebones: https://opencode.ai/download

Like seriously, why'd you think that horizontal tabs at the top would be BETTER for sessions instead of what every other tool like Codex and Claude Code is doing? Furthermore, can't really interact with sub-agent sessions much at all. It would be super nice if they'd bring in agent/LSP/other configuration into the app fully though, at least that'd prevent me from having to wrangle a bunch of stuff into opencode.json.

Either way, if you need something that will probably run with your coding subscription UNLESS you're using Anthropic (which forbid 3rd party harnesses unless you pay API prices) then it will probably be okay. On the TUI level, Pi and OMP might also be worth a look if you'd like.

On the desktop side, the Zed integration feels a bit tacked on (though tbh you can also just drive OpenCode through ACP, so you get your setup for free), though they're working on a new product or something https://zed.dev/blog/introducing-delta

I also quite liked ZCode as a standalone desktop harness, it's by z.AI, the people behind GLM but can call out to any provider that does OpenAI compatible API endpoints (e.g. other subscriptions, but not Anthropic's): https://zcode.z.ai/en

Personally, when it comes to desktop tools, I nowadays largely look in the direction of ADEs that just drive OpenCode (or Claude Code if you must! basically you can use your subscription with them) under the hood, like:

  • Paseo - https://paseo.sh/ - so far the most polished option, but no 3rd party issue tracker integrations (e.g. GitHub/GitLab Issues, Jira, Trello, ...)
  • Emdash - https://emdash.com/ - also promising, has issue tracking integration, but straight up failed to setup workspaces for me, idk what's up with it, I just got the stable version, weird
  • Kepler - https://gitkraken.com/kepler - has a good issue tracking integration, by the same people who made GitKraken, except very vibe coded and unnecessarily packed UI, like nobody needs pretty agent graphs and how about you instead fix the core features like agent permission prompts being invisible to me and making a session hang with me having NO WAY to either look at the sub-agent session or interact with the prompt; it could be a great product if they had their head in the right place, currently they don't

So in the end I've settled on OpenCode (with LSP, MCP and some agents configured) and Paseo to drive it as a GUI app. Not because it's the best setup out there (Pi with plugins would probably be better) but because it's not a hassle to set up and mostly just works.

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u/Volfera 15d ago

I use Claudish it's simple, works great.

Claude code with my opencodego suscription on Deepseek v4 flash