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Comment by bodge5000 | Hacker News Reader

A little off topic, but this seems like one of the better places to ask where I'm not gonna get a bunch of zealotry; a question for those of you who like using AI for software development, particularly using Claude Code or OpenCode.

I'll admit I'm a bit of a sceptic of AI but want to give it another shot over the weekend, what do people recommend these days?

I'm happy spending money but obviously don't want to spend a tonne since its just an experiment for me. I hear a lot of people raving about Opus 4.5, though apparently using that is near to $20 a prompt, Sonnet 4.5 seems a lot cheaper but then I don't know if I'm giving it (by it I mean AI coding) a fair chance if Opus is that much better. There's also OpenCode Zen, which might be a better option, I don't know.

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If you want to try Opus you can get the lowest Claude plan for $20 for the month, which has enough tokens for most hobby projects. I've been using to vibe code some little utilities for myself and haven't hit the limits yet.

Oh nice, I saw people on reddit say that Opus 4.5 will hit that $20 limit after a 1-3 prompts, though maybe thats just on massive codebases. Like you, I'd just want to try it out on some hobby projects

> I saw people on reddit say that Opus 4.5 will hit that $20 limit after a 1-3 prompts

That's people doing real-vibe coding prompts, like "Build me a music player with...". I'm using the $20 Codex plan and with getting it to plan first and then executing (in the same way I, an experienced dev would instruct a junior) haven't even managed to exhaust my 5-hour window limits, let alone the weekly limit.

Also if you keep an eye on it and kill it if it goes in the wrong direction you save plenty of tokens vs letting it go off on one. I wasted a bunch when Codex took 25 minutes(!) to install one package because something went wrong and instead of stopping and asking it decided to "problem solve" on its own.

Claude Code is the best thing I’ve used, though it’s been a while since I tried other tools. If you want to give it a fair shot, that’s what I’d use. I use the Max plan, I think. I write my initial instructions in markdown with pseudo code for the parts that really matter.

Here’s an example prompt: https://christophilus.com/blog/posts/example-claude-code-pro...

Take some existing code and bundle it into a zip or tar file. Upload it to Gemini and ask it for critique. It's surprisingly insightful and may give you some ideas for improvement. Use one of the Gemini in-depth models like Thinking or Pro; just looking at the thinking process is interesting. Best of all, they're free for limited use.

Wanted to try more of what I guess would be the opposite approach (it writes the code and I critique), partially to give it a fair shake and partially just out of curiosity. Also I can't lie, I always have a soft spot for a good TUI which no doubt helps

give codex a try for $20. You get a lot out of the base subscription. Opus will burn through the $20 sub in an hour

The latest models are all really good at writing code. Which is better is just vibes and personal preference at this point IMO

The agent harness of claude code / opencode / codex is what really makes the difference these days

Oh nice, so Claude/OpenAI isn't as important as (Claude)Code/Codex/OpenCode these days? How is opencode in comparison, the idea of zen does seem quite nice (a lot of flexibility to experiment with different models), though it does seem like a bit more config and work upfront than CC or codex

I'd say OpenCode > Codex > Claude Code in terms of the TUI interface UX. OpenCode feels a lot nicer to use. I haven't noticed a code quality difference, only a difference in the UX

I'm not sure about Zen, but OpenAI seems to be giving me $20 / week worth of tokens within the $20/month

Also for absolutely free models, MiniMax M2.1 has been impressive and useful to me (free through OpenCode). Don't judge the state of the art through the lens of that, though

Bit on an update on Zen, it looks like Anthropic have blocked Claude usage outside of Claude Code, so if I did want to use Opus, it'd have to be through that. They might reverse it or OpenCode might find a way round it, but overall I'd say at this point its safest to assume, if you're starting fresh with this, you go with one or the other.

Still not sure which one I'll go with, though I can't say I feel too keen to get into Claude after that

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