{"slug": "magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models", "title": "Magnitude: A coding agent that runs on open models", "summary": "Magnitude launched a coding agent that runs entirely on open models, costing 60% less than Claude Code with no drop in performance. The agent uses smart model routing to achieve 50–90% cost savings by assigning subtasks to lower-cost specialists. Magnitude offers pass-through API pricing with no markup and $5 free credits.", "body_md": "# Frontier coding without frontier prices\n\nMagnitude is a coding agent that runs entirely on open models. It costs 60% less than Claude Code with no drop in performance.\n\nPass-through API pricing with no markup. $5 free credits.\n\n## Smart model routing\n\n\"I need to explore the codebase, plan the implementation, then implement and review.\"\n\n\"Explore existing middleware patterns\"\n\n\"Design auth strategy\"\n\n\"Add JWT middleware + routes\"\n\n\"Review the changes\"\n\n\"Explore existing middleware patterns\"\n\n\"Design auth strategy\"\n\n\"Add JWT middleware + routes\"\n\n\"Review the changes\"\n\nA strong leader model plans and coordinates the work, routing subtasks to lower-cost specialists for 50–90% cost savings without sacrificing performance.\n\n## Coding agent efficiency\n\nOur internal benchmark measures the cost efficiency of coding agents.\n\n### Methodology\n\nIt's built around two projects: Rain, a bespoke DSL written in Zig, and [pgx](https://github.com/jackc/pgx), a real Postgres driver written in Go.\n\n- •\nTasks cover features, bug fixes, and refactors in each project, meant to reflect a diversity of real world engineering work rather than intentionally tricky puzzles.\n\n- •\nThere's 20 tasks, each run 5 times per agent for a total of 100 trials, measuring the score against total cost by token usage to determine performance per dollar.\n\n## We'll build what your team needs\n\nTell us your requirements and we'll deliver a tailored setup.\n\n-\n### Self-hosted open models\n\nWe'll help you run open models on whichever infrastructure you prefer.\n\n-\n### Custom model configurations\n\nTailored model setups for your team's workflow and requirements.\n\n-\n### Team controls\n\nShared billing, spend limits, and admin tools for your organization.\n\n[Speak with our founder](https://calendly.com/tom-magnitude/30min)\n\n## Get started in under a minute\n\n-\n1\nRun\nto download -\n2\nRun\nwhich will ask for an API key -\n3\n[Sign up](https://app.magnitude.dev)to get your free API key", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models", "canonical_source": "https://magnitude.dev", "published_at": "2026-06-20 17:35:21+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-20 18:07:25.629731+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "large-language-models", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Magnitude", "Claude Code", "Rain", "pgx", "Zig", "Go", "Postgres"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/magnitude-a-coding-agent-that-runs-on-open-models.jsonld"}}