Best Claude Alternative: Setup Guide

A Medium blog post by an unnamed author promotes OpenCode, an open-source coding tool, as a free alternative to Anthropic's Claude, claiming it offers unlimited searches and a large context window using open-source models. The guide walks through installing OpenCode via NPM, adding the VS Code extension, setting up OpenCode Zen, and connecting an API key, noting the main drawback is that free models lack multimodal support. The author argues that while Claude excels at research, its daily limits hinder coding workflows.

Hello Guys , I hope you are doing really well. For last 4 months I have been using open code and I was totally impressed regarding the outcome I am getting and the context window it is providing. That’s why I am going to share you how you can install that in your PC and use it. At first let me compare this with the GOAT: Cluade. Still I saying Claude is great and expensive as well. Now there were several tools like KIMI and Deepseek. They extensively over passed the Claude but when you consider the actual playground I found claude as a GEM. So in my opinion every model now building focusing on less cost by using Decomposition and Distillation. Unintentionally they are compromising the performance. I like Claude when you consider a legit searching and want to do a research. But when you consider the coding agent for vibe coding or for harnessing it sucks. The daily limits ends with in 15 min. So i can only able to write few chunks of code. But in Open code you can use Open sourced models with a great context windows and limitless searches. I did one of my clients project with a single API. I haven’t paid a single penny to open code. The one Disadvantage is All the free models are not multi-models. Right now we all are acquainted with multi-models. So when we see a service without image processing it felt like this is old school, but trust me guys it will worth your time. Let’s start the installation process. First you have to install open code from this site. there were several option. choose accordingly, NPM Node Package Manager can be used all classes Mac, Linux and windows . So for windows I prefer to use curl or brew. After installing all you have to do is open VS code and install the open code extension. If you completed the second step, just restart your VS code to make it work. The next step is going to be the setup for open code zen. For the installation go to this site. Site : https://opencode.ai/zen https://opencode.ai/zen Click on get started. After clicking on this you have to sign in either with google or github. After you signing process over. you will get this screen. Here on the Zen tab you can literally choose the model you like. I prefer you to choose all the free versions mentioned there beside the mode name, Select those. If you are batman or tony stark you can select all. You have to pay to access these models. The next step is to create an API Key. Create a API Key . Now we are good to go. Open VS code, then you have to open a terminal there you need to type “opencode” and then the terminal will change to a TUI like cluade code. At first you need to add the API key and selecting the model to select that, you need to type “/connect” . This will popup - Select open code zen and then you have to paste the API key. After pasting the API key you can able to select models. to select a free models you need to type “/models” . Now you are good to go. The open code has been installed and setup as well. Keep doing vibe code without limits. If this blog helped you for your work then do clap and follow me on medium. Till then take care. Bye Best Claude Alternative: Setup Guide https://pub.towardsai.net/best-claude-alternative-setup-guide-17ec18cc0714 was originally published in Towards AI https://pub.towardsai.net on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.