Free Claude Code Alternative - OpenCode
About This Video
Free AI coding in OpenCode Desktop — no credit card, no API key. I test all six free OpenCode Zen models (Ling 3.0 Flash Fin Free, Big Pickle, MiMo-V2.5 Free, Muse Spark Contributor Free, Nemotron 3 Ultra & 3.5 Lightning) on real Next.js and Python builds, and show which one actually ships working code. OpenCode Desktop is the open-source AI coding agent with tabs, sessions and free models built in — a genuinely free alternative to Claude Code, Cursor and Codex. In this video I install it on Windows, Linux and macOS, connect Zen with /connect, switch models with /models, and benchmark every free model on the same three tasks: a full-stack CRUD app, a legacy refactor, and a bug hunt in a 2,000-line file. ⚠️ Important for UK/EU viewers: all Zen models are hosted in the US, and the free tiers may use your prompts and completions to improve the models (Muse Spark Contributor Free explicitly trades data for free tokens; Nemotron runs on NVIDIA trial endpoints). Don't point these at client code or anything under NDA — I cover exactly how to sandbox them at 09:40. ⏱ Chapters 00:00 The free-model stack nobody told you about 01:05 Installing OpenCode Desktop (Windows / macOS / Linux .deb) 02:30 Connecting Zen + getting your free API key 03:45 /models — what "Free" really means 04:50 Ling 3.0 Flash Fin Free — 124B MoE, 5.1B active 06:20 Big Pickle — the stealth model everyone's guessing about 08:00 MiMo-V2.5 Free — speed vs instruction following 09:40 Muse Spark Contributor Free + the data trade-off 11:15 Nemotron 3 Ultra vs 3.5 Lightning 12:40 Head-to-head: same prompt, six models 15:10 The winner + my daily-driver config 16:30 Costs if you outgrow free (Zen pricing explained) 🔗 Links OpenCode: https://opencode.ai Zen model list & pricing: https://opencode.ai/docs/zen/ My opencode.json config: [gist] 💬 Which free model won for you? Drop your model + language in the comments — I'm collecting results for a follow-up leaderboard.
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