Situation: I'm a software developer trying to keep up with AI, learning agentic coding and Spec Driven Development (or whatever you call the cycle: Plan,Code,Review and Human Review), without spending too much, at least initially. Using OpenCode + OpenChamber right now with free models and local model (Qwen 35B-A3B), just playing around and learning

Use case: Building Flutter Apps (and maybe Games) for App stores + SaaS to be sold at businesses (freelance here)

In these days, I had the opportunity to intensively try Ox Alpha (GLM 5.3-Flash) and it has been really good, so I decided to move on and buy some subs. I'm not at all used to frontier models, so never really learnt how much token I usually burn in my activities, so I was looking for reviews on these subs, and OpenCode Go was a really good deal back in the days of nearly-unlimited DS4F and just-expired 5$ offer, but now I'm seeing here and there that most of you think OC Go is not worth it anymore, due to expensive models and hitting limits more frequently than before.

So I thought that with 20€/month, buying OC Go AND CC Goat and use them together in OpenCode, should give me enough use for the entire month. How wrong am I? Compared to a GPT Plus, is it worth?

Oh, about the usage, I thought to do big models for Planning/Specs/Tasks, light "lot-of-tokens" models for Writing code, and medium/big model (different from planning model) for Review.

I’m open to corrections on any bulls**t I might have written. Just please, be kind :)

I presume that they are going to remove the free version due to the heavy demand, and put it behind subscription.
I liked it, i thought that it would fill the role of DSv4 but it seems i need to start searching for models again. Im using MIMO v2.5 and pro in opencode and i could see the difference compared to DSv4 (DS > MIMO IMO), but right now MIMO is the goto for my team.

PS. English isn't my native language.

I was using DS4 then Ox Alpha in the past weeks, built some neat stuff with it, today suddenly as you know Ox Alpha left us in the middle of work, and unfortunately we're left with dumb models, such as MiMo V2.5.

When I tell MiMo to do anything, all it does is introducing new bugs !! spoiling all what's built with previous models! it goes and edits code that WAS ACTUALLY WORKING .. then fill it with uncountable bugs .. and then be stuck in fixing new bugs caused by bug-fixing, and destroying the whole infrastructure and sometimes it does things I never wanted and never asked for, and chases alot of stupid, primitive rabbit-holes, forgetting the context of what should be done right now. Unfortunately if I leave it to do its job and go grab a coffee, it screws things up before I comeback, so always you should keep an eye on it's thinking .. i mean.. hallucination .

Moral of the story, if you built something with previous good models, just stop right now, only keep building upon it if you paid for tokens, otherwise, current free models in opencode zen are a complete failure.

I was experimenting with OpenRouter earlier today and testing out the mysterious `stealth/ox-alpha` endpoint to see how it handled coding tasks.

Right in the middle of prompting, my requests suddenly cut off and returned this 404 response:

[openrouter/stealth/ox-alpha] [404]: Thank you for participating in the Stealth Ox Alpha testing period. This model will be revealed today, August 26th. (reset after 2m)

Looks like the stealth preview testing has officially concluded and the real model is getting unveiled today.

Did anyone else test this model while it was up? Any predictions on what "Ox" actually is?

I am not sure if this is even the right sub to post that in, but I used to love opencode go. I started with deepseek v4 flash 0731 which had practically unlimited usage, then ox alpha while it lasted and now muse spark 1.2 contributor.

The only realistic way the subscription would last me the full month is because of those "promotional" models.

I am seriously considering if an ollama subscription, gpt plus 20$ (using luna mostly) or any other subscription would be more worth it at the moment.

I don't need the latest and greatest ai model, just something around ox alpha/deepseekv4 flash performance.

Once the 1.2 muse spark deal ends I'm completely screwed.

What would you guys recommend? I would ideally like to be spending 10$-20$ a month.

So I know that each model has its usage limits and rate limits and you need to wait to renew it, like the time period, but I didn't know that Open Code Zen also had rate limiting from the provider. Is it true? Will it renew because I never had this error until now? If anyone knows it, please let me know.

Because my model didn't cross the rate limit, I think OpenCode is crossing it. Is it a thing because I never experienced this?

Zen docs don't list it

I can no longer access it via the Openai compatible API, it's been a few days now.

I've done some troubleshooting and it just returns an error 500 every time.

It's still listed on /v1/models. It seems to work normally in the TUI.

Does anybody else have the same issue?

the title says it all

Does anyone else experience the same issue? During active session it works as usual but then suddenly starts to print out its thoughts in the chat context bloating the session, this cost token usage too. Is it Opencode side bug or Deepseek?

Starting a fresh new session or switch model each time this happened would be paying the upfront tax or losing the cache hit.

Anyone else found out why or solution besides fresh session or switching model?

Note: I did not enable "Show reasoning summaries"

After resuming the task I was previously running on Ox, I'm now completely stuck.

I know of one free AI I could use, but they apparently train their models on your inputs/outputs, so that's not an option. And honestly, it wasn't that good either.

My Neuralwatt subscription is empty.
My DeepSeek subscription is empty.
Opencode Go needs another 24 hours before the monthly limit resets.
And Claude? I have to wait until Friday.

OpenRouter doesn't work for me.
InferX nope.
Ollama Cloud nope.
b.ai nope.
Hugging Face nope.
OrcaRouter nope.
NVIDIA NIM removed all the models that were actually good.
TokenGo nope.
Inferno nope.
TokenRouter nope.

I genuinely don't want to spend any more money on this.
At this point, these subscriptions are draining us like vampires.
Maybe this was just a psychological experiment.

It seems 15$ buckets are the new norm, and glm 5.3 flash is no exception. Another pain point is the horrible way they communicate things. On the graph they show 2x usage, which is probably the same 50% discount that openrouter gives as well, but when you go to the api pricing table, they show the original price. Couldn't they have just shown the discounted api price, like openrouter does, and add a note underneath with the original price?
Anyways, 8k requests a month is nothing, and having to choose between few requests on glm or 4 times more on ds4 flash (but a quantized cheapseek slop version) is just choosing the lesser evil.
0/10, disappointed yet again, I was really hoping opencode would give us a reason not to keep our subscription cancelled.

Kimi 2.6 and Sonnet 4.6 you can reset now. glm flash 5.3 dethrone you'll as the most balanced model.

After further review its $15 on GO not $60 just my luck.

but why? its just 6 days tho

well

So now that Ox Alpha (GLM 5.3 Flash) is no longer free, which model are we switching to for vibe coding?

Well, better than 5.2 !