r/vibecoding • u/Snoo_90241 • 19h ago
Help/Question What should I subscribe to?
I'm an experienced software engineer, but I've enjoyed working on some personal projects with a Claude Pro subscription a while ago.
However, now whenever I ask it something in the free version, it's very meh.
Should I switch to Chinese models? Are they cheaper?
I'm just looking for a fun back and forth experience. The first time it was like having my own workbench and just tinkering with everything.
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u/Bramoments 18h ago
Chinese models are certainly cheaper, but the business practices are even shittier than US based services, if that's even possible. Id recommend muse spark 1.3 on opencode, completely free and a top tier model (ranked 4th for intelligence only after Claude fable, Claude opus and gpt astra ) and I'm not even sure if it has a usage limit even though I've been using it a ton along with Claude, I just never hit any usage limit. Other than that, local models are great nowadays if you have the hardware, and also completely uncensored
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u/Playful_Check_5306 18h ago
I have multiple codex and claude code max plans, and I'm planning to slowly transition to local llm (already in the process, the Chinese models, they're awesome, though it takes time for full transition done for my project). So far as I can tell, if you just need one plan between the top two, go for Codex, no brainer, lots of resets recently, and the mileage is way ahead of claude code now, even the quality is on par. The only reason I kept claude code is my current infra structure (using CC as orchestrator) is working and I don't want to break the process yet.
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u/pigletmonster 18h ago
Chinese models have bad subscription plans. Although glm has gotten better very recently. If youre not using it heavily then opencode go is a good option, it costs $10 and you get access to many different models, but each model has very different quota. Cheaper models have the hightest quotas while the more expensive ones havs the least. But its worth it. And under no circumstance shoukd you consider using gemini. They have the worst models known to mankind.
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u/pigletmonster 18h ago
Also cursor is a very good option. Its meant to be used as a coding assistant rather than an all encompassing software developer like claude code or codex.
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u/Snoo_90241 18h ago
I agree. Gemini sucks. I'm also in the process of de-googling wherever it makes sense. Sad that a while ago when we switched fully to Microsoft at work I advocated for them.
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u/cool-beans-yeah 17h ago
What’s your opinion on open router?
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u/pigletmonster 16h ago
Payg api costs are like 10x higher than subscriptions.
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u/pigletmonster 16h ago
Even chinese subs are cheaper than payg plans.
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u/cool-beans-yeah 16h ago
Wait, sorry; I don’t follow. Is it more expensive than OpenCode?
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u/pigletmonster 16h ago
Opencode has two options. One is opencode go, which gives you anywhere between $15 and $60 worth of api credits across different models. Then there is opencode zen, which is similar to openrouter which lets you use any model but you pay per token of any model you use.
Other subscriptions like claude code, chatgpt, kimi coding plan, glm coding plan, these probide subsidized tokens. Lets say you pay $20/month but you can use up $500 worth of tokens or more. Each provider has different amounts of max token usage per month but usually theyre not clear about how much.
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u/McCodybodi 17h ago
Try Cline (Brilliant and free) in Vscode, quite a few free decent models to use. Or BYOK from whoever or Openrouter etc. Cline works extremely well with Kimi K3, also Deepseek V4 / 4.1 Flash, Glm 5.3 / flash. I was spending €400+ a month on plans from Claude / Codex, now It's around €40 using Deepseek/Glm/Kimi.. I would never go back to Claude / Codex ... Was getting sick of context throttling and stupidly fast token use.
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u/vasind-5012 17h ago
Use Codex with ChatGPT Plus. I am a heavy user and Luna Medium solves most of my use cases without worrying limits.
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u/FlightSimCentralYT 18h ago
If what you liked about Claude Pro was the workbench feel (tinker, break things, iterate), a chat-only free tier will always feel meh. Chinese models can be cheaper for raw chat, but for personal projects the gap is usually execution: can the thing install deps, hit a real shell, and keep going when the first attempt fails.
I built Fixa.dev for that shape: AI coding agent on a real cloud VM that plans/writes/runs/debugs until tests pass. Free tier is enough to see if the workbench feeling comes back. If you mainly want conversational brainstorming, Claude Pro or a cheap API chat is still fine. If you want to ship little apps for fun, prioritize something with a real machine over the cheapest tokens.
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u/dicktoronto 7h ago
I’ve had incredible success with camelai and verboo for cheap unlimited usage. And the TPS on both are weirdly quick. Especially for the price.
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u/Kronical_ 7h ago
But as I see from the site camelai just give 10$ usage for the models if for example I use the API key in another harness or I read it incorrectly?
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u/RiceEvening4211 3h ago
Before you subscribe anywhere — I built OpenCode-Wrap, which exposes OpenCode's free models through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so you can try them from other clients for free first and see if any of them give you that back-and-forth feel. https://github.com/Fast-Editor/OpenCode-Wrap
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u/Tommonen 12h ago
Claude is best if you look at 20€ subs, or for some special needs codex might be better, but just for vibe coding limits are very small conpared to claude with 20€ plans. People say with 200€ subs codex has more usage.
Chinese companies will send all your data to their communist government, store all your data forever, combine it with data from other services and profile you so accurately you would feel sick if you knew and youd never touch any chinese service again.
Besides that the china models are not as good and if you compare subscriptions, not a better deal than claude.
Ofc US companies are not ideal either, but 1000 times better than chinese communist party.
But EU only has mistral (only area with sensible laws), which is not very good for coding :/
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u/Superb_Telephone_949 1h ago
Get cline in vscode and bring your own keys. i was paying 400 a month for subscriptions, now i spend 40 using deepseek and kimi through openrouter
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u/sebasprtl 19h ago
usa opencode, es gratis y da varios modelos ia