OpenCode vs Claude Code: Price, Models and Limits in 2026

Table of Contents

• Price: OpenCode Go versus Claude Pro and Max
• Available models
• Usage limits
• Installation and the terminal experience
• Extensibility: skills, plugins and MCP
• When to choose each one
• Beyond the tool

The short verdict: choose Claude Code if you want Anthropic's models built in and don't mind paying from 20 USD a month. Choose OpenCode if you want an open source agent, to pick the model yourself and to pay less: its Go subscription costs 10 USD.

	OpenCode (+ Go)	Claude Code
Entry price	Open source agent; Go at 10 USD/month	Claude Pro at 20 USD/month
Models	75+ providers, local models and the Go catalog	Claude models (Opus 5.5 by default)
Limits	Dollar cap per model: 20% every 5 h, 50% per week	5-hour window and weekly limit, shared with the Claude chat
Installation	curl or npm; terminal, desktop and web	curl, Homebrew, WinGet or npm; terminal, IDE, desktop and web
Extensibility	MCP, skills, plugins, custom tools	MCP, skills, plugins, hooks, subagents

Data checked on October 8, 2026 in the OpenCode Go documentation, the OpenCode documentation and the Claude pricing page.

Price: OpenCode Go versus Claude Pro and Max

The two tools charge differently. Claude Code is included in Claude subscriptions. OpenCode is an open source agent: you only pay for the models, with your own key, with Zen balance or with the Go subscription.

Plan	Price per month	What it includes
OpenCode Go	10 USD	The Go model catalog, with a cap per model
OpenCode Go Plus	40 USD	The same models, with higher caps
Claude Pro	20 USD	Claude Code and the Claude chat
Claude Max 5x	100 USD	5 times Pro's usage per session
Claude Max 20x	200 USD	20 times Pro's usage per session

Claude Pro can also be paid yearly: 200 USD (17 USD a month); Max is monthly only. The details for each side are in OpenCode Go pricing and limits and in Claude Code pricing.

Available models

This is the fundamental difference between the two.

Claude Code uses Claude models: Opus 5.5 by default, and Sonnet, Haiku or Fable if you choose them with /model. You can connect it to Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud or Microsoft Foundry, but they are still Claude models.

OpenCode is not tied to one provider. It supports more than 75 model providers and local models through Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp. The Go subscription adds its own catalog with models such as DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, Qwen, MiniMax, Grok and also Claude Haiku 5.5.

What about using Claude models in OpenCode? With an Anthropic API key, yes. What is not allowed is using your Claude Pro or Max subscription inside OpenCode through plugins: the OpenCode providers documentation warns that Anthropic prohibits it and that OpenCode stopped bundling those plugins as of version 1.3.0.

Usage limits

Both use a five-hour window and a weekly limit, but they measure them differently.

OpenCode Go sets a monthly dollar cap on each model. Of that cap you can spend 20% every 5 hours, 50% per week and 100% in the month. If you hit the cap, you carry on with the free models or, if you turn on Use balance, with your Zen balance.

Claude Code shares its limits with the Claude chat. The session resets on a rolling five-hour window and paid plans add a weekly limit. Anthropic gives no fixed number of messages: it describes Max as 5 or 20 times Pro's usage. When you hit the cap you can wait, upgrade or turn on extra usage credits.

The practical upshot: with OpenCode Go you know how much you can spend per model; with Claude Code you know how much more than Pro each plan gives you.

Installation and the terminal experience

Both install with one command and are used from the terminal.

# OpenCode
curl -fsSL https://opencode.ai/v2/install | bash

# Claude Code
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

OpenCode also installs with npm (npm install -g @opencode/cli) and has a terminal version, a desktop app and a web app. The step-by-step, with setting up your first agent, is in the OpenCode installation guide.

Claude Code also installs with Homebrew, WinGet or npm, and works in the terminal, in VS Code, Cursor and JetBrains, in the desktop app and in the browser. It's all in the Claude Code guide.

Extensibility: skills, plugins and MCP

They are more alike here than they seem:

• Project rules: both read AGENTS.md. Claude Code also uses CLAUDE.md.
• MCP: both connect to MCP servers to talk to external tools.
• Skills and plugins: both support them. Claude Code has an official plugin marketplace with plugins that bundle skills, subagents, hooks and MCP servers.
• What's unique to each: Claude Code adds hooks and subagents; OpenCode lets you build custom tools and has a plan mode.

If you share an AGENTS.md in the repository, you can switch between the two without rewriting your rules.

When to choose each one

Choose Claude Code if:

• you want Opus and Sonnet built in, without configuring providers;
• you already pay for Claude Pro or Max for the chat;
• you value the official ecosystem of plugins, hooks and subagents.

Choose OpenCode if:

• you want an open source agent and not to depend on a single provider;
• you'd rather pay less (Go costs 10 USD) or use local models;
• you want to pick the model for each task.

Use both if: you keep Claude Code for delicate work and send the volume (tests, simple refactors, documentation) to OpenCode with cheaper models.

Beyond the tool

Which agent you choose matters less than it seems. What decides the result is how you steer it: what you ask for, how you review what it delivers and when you stop it. I wrote about that in soft skills for coding with AI.