GILD verdict
Pick Qwen Code when your models are Qwen or other open models, on your hardware or Model Studio.
That team still chooses a route per engineer and keeps Coding Plan keys out of automation. Pick OpenCode when the team runs several model vendors, wants to drive the agent from its own scripts, or needs SSO through Enterprise central config, and a platform owner will replace its allow-by-default permissions. For 10 engineers, Coding Plan Pro costs US$500 a month against US$100 on OpenCode Go or US$400 on Go Plus.
Both are open-source coding agents that run on the model you choose, local models included. Qwen Code is Alibaba's Apache 2.0 terminal agent for Qwen and other open models, on your hardware or Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, and Coding Plan Pro costs US$50 a month for interactive use. OpenCode is Anomaly's MIT-licensed agent across 75+ providers, with OpenCode Go at US$10 a month, a scriptable server, and Enterprise central config that ties sign-in to your SSO, while Qwen Code documents no SSO, SCIM, or audit log.
Choosing between Qwen Code and OpenCode
Choose Qwen Code if
- Your models are Qwen or other open models, on your hardware or Alibaba Cloud Model Studio.
- The team bills models through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, on Coding Plan, Token Plan, or pay-as-you-go keys.
- You want an Apache 2.0 agent you can inspect, fork, or strip of telemetry.
Choose OpenCode if
- Engineers use models from more than one vendor, or open and local models, and you want one agent and one set of rules across them.
- You want to drive the agent from your own scripts or pipelines through the opencode serve OpenAPI endpoint and the OpenCode 2 client package.
- You can route all traffic through an internal AI gateway, with Enterprise central config tying sign-in to your SSO.
Side by side
| Dimension | Qwen Code | OpenCode |
|---|---|---|
| Plans and limits | Free agent; Coding Plan Pro US$50 a month with up to 6,000 requests per 5 hours, 45,000 a week, and 90,000 a month, interactive use only; pay-as-you-go keys or local models otherwise; the free Qwen OAuth tier ended April 15, 202636 | Free agent; OpenCode Go US$10 a month and Go Plus US$40 a month, with limits on rolling windows of 20% of the monthly allowance per 5 hours and 50% per week; Zen pay-as-you-go at provider prices plus a US$1.23 card processing fee on each US$20 top-up; your own provider keys or a GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT Plus or Pro sign-in; Enterprise priced per seat through sales910111216 |
| Monthly cost for one workload (GILD calculation; neither product publishes a common measure of work per dollar)GILD calculation from Alibaba Cloud's Coding Plan page, checked October 28, 2026, and the OpenCode Go page as GILD's OpenCode page states it on October 28, 2026. Inputs: 10 engineers, one Coding Plan Pro account each because accounts may not be shared, and one Go or Go Plus subscription each. Coding Plan Pro caps requests per 5 hours, week, and month, while Go states its limits as shares of a monthly allowance. | For a team of 10 engineers, each on their own Coding Plan Pro account at US$50 a month: US$500 a month, with automated runs billed separately on pay-as-you-go keys; the cap counts requests6 | For a team of 10 engineers, each on OpenCode Go at US$10 a month: US$100 a month, or US$400 a month on Go Plus at US$40 each; provider keys and Zen bill per use instead; Go's cap counts shares of a monthly allowance10 |
| Models | OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Qwen APIs, third-party routes such as DeepSeek, Kimi, and OpenRouter, or local models through Ollama or vLLM, switched with /model13 | 75+ providers through Models.dev, local models, and GitHub Copilot or ChatGPT Plus or Pro sign-in; Anthropic prohibits using a Claude Pro or Max plan in it, so Claude means API, Bedrock, or Vertex billing812 |
| Where it runs | Terminal on macOS, Linux, and Windows, plus a desktop app, web UI, SDKs, and chat channels1 | Terminal UI, a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, a web client, and GitHub Actions through /opencode comments; in OpenCode 2 every client attaches to one background server91517 |
| Integrations | VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains plugins, MCP servers, and an experimental daemon that serves other clients over ACP1 | Extensions for VS Code, Cursor, Zed, Windsurf, and VSCodium; opencode serve exposes an OpenAPI endpoint, and OpenCode 2 ships a client package for scripts91417 |
| Data use | The chosen route's terms govern prompts; usage statistics on by default for every auth method; Model Studio states it never trains on your data and stores call data47 | OpenCode states it does not store your code or context, and stores data only when you use its free models; Zen and Go route requests through OpenCode, and Go lists retention per model, from zero days for most to 30 days for some, with two contributor models priced low in exchange for training on prompts9101116 |
| Admin controls | No documented SSO, SCIM, or audit log; OpenTelemetry events for each prompt and tool call can go to your own backend45 | Enterprise central config integrates with your SSO and can disable every provider except your internal AI gateway; permission rules resolve to allow, ask, or deny per tool and pattern, and OpenCode 2 allows every action except .env reads by default1316 |
| License and lineage | Apache License 2.0; based on Gemini CLI v0.8.2 and developed independently since Qwen Code v0.112 | MIT license, from Anomaly; OpenCode 2, released October 12, 2026, runs one background server for every client91718 |
| Reported by practitioners | In an August 2026 GitHub issue, one builder's local Qwen models on llama-server failed with HTTP 400 after an update to Qwen Code 0.22.3, while Pi and OpenCode kept working19 | One Hacker News commenter ranks OpenCode above Qwen Code for its output, subagents, and free models; another gets great results from Qwen 3.7 Plus on the US$10 Go plan but is weighing a switch after the October 2026 breach; in September 2026, an Arch package update installed OpenCode 2 under a 1.x version number and broke one builder's local llama.cpp setup until they found the new background service; the builder was running local Qwen models202122 |
| Choose it if | Choose Qwen Code if your models are Qwen or other open models, on your hardware or Alibaba Cloud Model Studio16 | Choose OpenCode if your team runs several model vendors, wants one agent it can script, and has a platform owner to set its permission policy121314 |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
All practitioners rate OpenCode +27, 77 points above Qwen Code at −50. Most of the gap is in complaints, with 29 of Qwen Code's 42 sources negative against 15 of OpenCode's 60.
The score counts the authors from all practitioners that take a side, one vote each with their latest view, and is how far positive votes lead negative ones, per 100 votes, so OpenCode's +27 rests on votes split 31 positive, 13 mixed and 15 negative.
Each of Qwen Code's authors wrote one source here, so each source is one vote. A lead of a fifth of the votes reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots show each source, positive, mixed, negative. Use a task pilot to measure accepted work and review time.
Footprint on the Agentic Software Development stack
They differ on one of 12 layers. On Code review, Qwen Code supports it and OpenCode touches it. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Qwen Code | OpenCode |
|---|---|---|
| Validate | ||
| Code review | Supports | Touches |
The 11 layers where they match
| Layer | Qwen Code | OpenCode |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | ||
| Work planning | Supports | Supports |
| Build | ||
| Codebase context | Supports | Supports |
| Coding | Core | Core |
| Agent runtime | Core | Core |
| Tool execution | Core | Core |
| Validate | ||
| Debugging | Supports | Supports |
| Testing | Supports | Supports |
| Application security | Touches | Touches |
| Ship | ||
| Source control | Touches | Touches |
| CI/CD | Touches | Touches |
| Operate | ||
| Observability | Touches | Touches |
What practitioners praise
Among all practitioners, OpenCode alone has six praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Plugins and Custom Agents and Any Provider, Any Model lead, at 13 of 13 and 12 of 13. MCP & Editor Integrations and Harness for Local Models reach 5 sources from 3 authors only for Qwen Code, at 5 of 6 and 5 of 9. OpenCode needs a pilot on the same repository tasks before you choose on either.
| Praised for | Qwen Code | OpenCode |
|---|---|---|
| MCP & Editor Integrations | 5 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Harness for Local Models | 5 of 9 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Plugins and Custom Agents | Not a theme in its sources | 13 of 13 |
| Any Provider, Any Model | Not a theme in its sources | 12 of 13 |
| Server, SDK, and Remote Clients | Not a theme in its sources | 10 of 10 |
| Lean Prompts and Cache Reuse | Not a theme in its sources | 7 of 9 |
| Go and Free Models | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 7 |
| Terminal Interface | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 7 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name.
A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among all practitioners. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
Among all practitioners, OpenCode alone has eight concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Permissive Defaults and No Sandbox and Data Sent to OpenCode by Default lead, at 7 of 7 and 6 of 6. Bugs & Stalled Tasks and Context & Cache Use reach 5 sources from 3 authors only for Qwen Code, at 16 of 16 and 5 of 6. OpenCode needs a pilot on the same repository tasks before you choose on either.
| Raised as a concern | Qwen Code | OpenCode |
|---|---|---|
| Bugs & Stalled Tasks | 16 of 16 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Context & Cache Use | 5 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Permissive Defaults and No Sandbox | Not a theme in its sources | 7 of 7 |
| Data Sent to OpenCode by Default | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 6 |
| Release Churn and Regressions | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 7 |
| Server Exposure and the Console Breach | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Claude Subscription Access | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Plan Limits and Quota Burn | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Breaks Terminal Habits | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 5 |
| Memory Use | Not a theme in its sources | 5 of 6 |
22 sources
- QwenLM/qwen-code on GitHub (README)
- QwenLM/qwen-code LICENSE (Apache License 2.0)
- Qwen Code docs: Authentication
- Qwen Code docs: Terms of service and privacy notice
- Qwen Code docs: Telemetry
- Alibaba Cloud Model Studio: Coding Plan overview
- Alibaba Cloud Model Studio: Privacy notice
- OpenCode
- OpenCode: Download
- OpenCode Go
- OpenCode Zen
- OpenCode docs: Providers
- OpenCode 2 docs: Permissions
- OpenCode docs: Server
- OpenCode docs: GitHub
- OpenCode docs: Enterprise
- Anomaly: OpenCode 2.0 (Oct 12, 2026)
- OpenCode on GitHub (anomalyco/opencode)
- QwenLM/qwen-code issue #10530: 400 Failed to initialize samplers in 0.22.3 (Aug 29, 2026)
- Hacker News comment by rurban on OpenCode, open source AI coding agent (Mar 21, 2026)
- Hacker News comment by john01dav on OpenCode Go and Qwen 3.7 Plus (Oct 17, 2026)
- r/opencodeCLI: Forced transition from opencode v1 to v2 (Sep 16, 2026)