Skip to main content

AlibabaAI Coding Agent

Qwen Code

Apache 2.0 coding agent from Alibaba's Qwen team that edits code and runs commands from the terminal, IDE plugins, a desktop app, and a web UI. It began as a fork of Gemini CLI and calls OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Qwen APIs or local models through Ollama or vLLM. The free Qwen OAuth tier ended on April 15, 2026.

The 30-Second Take

Pick Qwen Code if you run Qwen or other open models on your own hardware and want an open-source terminal agent.

Practitioners praise it as a harness for local models, and bugs and stalled tasks lead their complaints. The free OAuth tier ended in April 2026, so each team picks a paid route or a local model.

Best fit
Teams running Qwen or other open models locally, or on Alibaba Cloud Model Studio, that want an open-source terminal agent.
Main constraint
No SSO, SCIM, or audit log, and Coding Plan keys may not run scripts, pipelines, or backends.
First move
Pick the sign-in route per engineer, turn off usage statistics, and export OpenTelemetry events to your own backend.

Why

Watch the terms: Coding Plan keys are barred from automated use, usage statistics are on by default, and there is no SSO or audit log. Turn the statistics off and treat exported telemetry as your audit trail.

Practitioner sentiment, all practitioners−50 Strong negative

42 practitioners, 53 sources reviewed, Updated Oct 31, 2026How this is measured

Read the GILD Review
Save a product your organization uses.Keep up with Qwen Code without adding it to your stack.Visit Website
Operating stack
Agentic Software Development

Comparisons

How does Qwen Code compare with the alternatives?

  1. Qwen Code vs Gemini CLI

    • AI Coding Agents

    Qwen Code began as a fork of Gemini CLI and now runs any model API or local model. Gemini CLI serves Code Assist subscribers who bought before October 9, 2026 and paid Gemini API users while Google moves terminal work to Antigravity CLI.

  2. Qwen Code vs OpenCode

    • AI Coding Agents

    Both are open-source coding agents that run on the model you choose, local models included. Qwen Code fits teams on Qwen or other open models, with Coding Plan Pro at US$50 a month. OpenCode spans 75+ providers, with Go at US$10 a month and SSO through Enterprise central config.

  3. Qwen Code vs Kimi Code

    • AI Coding Agents

    Pick Kimi Code for Moonshot's models in one plan across CLI, IDE, and desktop. Pick Qwen Code for an open-source agent that runs on any model, with Alibaba's Coding Plan as one option.

Operator Insights

What are engineering leaders learning from deploying Qwen Code?

See all 3 operator accounts

Buying and deployment

What engineering leaders should verify before a broader rollout.

Sourced from Qwen Code and Alibaba Cloud documentation

How you buy it

US$50 a month

Coding Plan Pro for interactive use; Qwen Code itself is free under the Apache License 2.0.

Source 1, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Coding Plan: Coding PlanSource 2, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Qwen Code README: Qwen Code README

Details

Qwen Code is free under the Apache License 2.0, and you pay for the model route. Alibaba Cloud Coding Plan Pro costs US$50 a month for interactive use in coding tools. Pay-as-you-go Model Studio keys, any third-party API, and local models through Ollama or vLLM also work. The Coding Plan Lite plan closed to new subscriptions on March 20, 2026.

Cost drivers

6,000 requests per 5 hours

Coding Plan Pro also caps 45,000 a week, and its key may not run automated scripts or backends.

Source 1, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Coding Plan: Coding Plan

Details

Coding Plan Pro allows up to 6,000 requests per 5 hours, 45,000 a week, and 90,000 a month, and a task uses 5 to 30 or more model calls. Its key may not run automated scripts or application backends. Calls made with a general Model Studio key are billed pay-as-you-go on top of the plan.

Where it runs

Your machine, any model

A terminal agent with VS Code, Zed and JetBrains plugins; prompts go to the model route you set.

Source 2, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Qwen Code README: Qwen Code READMESource 5, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Authentication: AuthenticationSource 3, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Terms and privacy notice: Terms and privacy notice

Details

A terminal agent for macOS, Linux, and Windows, with VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains plugins, MCP servers, a desktop app, a web UI, and SDKs. It calls OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Qwen APIs or local models through Ollama or vLLM, so prompts go to the route you configure. model.name sets the default model to activate when Qwen Code starts. With your own API key, your chosen provider's terms apply, and its documentation covers data usage and retention.

What to verify

Usage statistics on

On by default for every auth method, including your own key, until you turn them off.

Source 3, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Terms and privacy notice: Terms and privacy noticeSource 4, Qwen Code team (Alibaba), Model Studio security certifications and privacy: Model Studio security certifications and privacySource 6, alibabacloud.com, ActionTrail supported services: ActionTrail supported servicesSource 7, qwenlm.github.io, qwen serve guide: qwen serve guideSource 8, alibabacloud.com, Alibaba Cloud: Model Studio product page: Alibaba Cloud: Model Studio product page

Details

Qwen Code sends anonymous usage statistics by default for every auth method, including your own key, until you turn them off. Alibaba says Model Studio has achieved SOC 2 compliance and does no unauthorized training on customer data. The qwen serve guide says to run one daemon per principal that needs its own audit log. The Qwen Code docs name no SSO, SAML or SCIM: GILD found 0 matches across 204 English docs and repository pages, checked Nov 2, 2026.

Pages GILD searched, by set, Nov 2, 2026
WherePages readMatches
Qwen Code documentation in English, every page in its sitemap2030
Qwen Code's GitHub repository page10
GILD search record, Nov 2, 2026

Signals

What is the current evidence saying about Qwen Code?

A current read of what engineering teams and individual developers report publicly about Qwen Code, on local models and on Alibaba's paid routes, with each finding linked to its sources.

Whose sources count

Practitioner sentiment, all practitioners

−50 Strong negative net

of 42 sources that take a side, each author counted once.

How this figure is made

Leaders and teams have 6 accounts; GILD prints their sentiment from 20.

Current sentiment

Positive, mixed and negative sources

Across 47 sources, 8 are positive, 5 mixed, and 29 negative. Bugs and stalled tasks are raised in 16 sources, and MCP and editor integrations draw praise in 5.

Use a task pilot to measure accepted work and review time.

Evidence field. All 53 sources, one mark each.

Arrange by

Each mark is one source: positive, mixed, negative, no opinion stated, or documentation (not counted).

By sentiment, All practitioners. Every source GILD read, grouped as the field draws it.
GroupSourcesPositiveMixedNegativeNo opinion stated and not counted in the scoreDocumentation, checked and not counted
Positive880000
Mixed505000
Negative29002900
Not counted500050
Documentation600006
Every source GILD read, by the quarter it was published, as the field's time axis counts it. Documentation is dated by the day it was checked.
QuarterSources
Q4 20251
Q1 20266
Q2 20266
Q3 202616
Q4 202618
Documentation, checked6

By sentiment

6 documentation pages check facts and are not counted.

Hover a mark for a quick look, click it or press Enter to open its source.Tap a mark to open its source, then step to its neighbors with Previous and Next.

What practitioners praise

Top praise of 2. Each mark is a source on it; filled marks praise it.

  1. MCP & Editor Integrations5 of 6 sources on it praise it

Most common concerns

Top concern of 2. Each mark is a source on it; filled marks raise it.

  1. Bugs & Stalled TasksAll 16 sources on it raise it as a concern
All 53 sources behind these findings
  1. Qwen Code READMEQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  2. AuthenticationQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  3. Coding PlanQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  4. Terms of service and privacy noticeQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  5. TelemetryQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  6. Model Studio privacy noticeQwen Code team (Alibaba) (Official), Product documentation, checked Oct 28, 2026
  7. bug(core): a native api.anthropic.com session 400s forever when a persisted thinking part lost its signaturezhuanyi, University of Waterloo (self-described: Qwen Code 0.25.0 on Anthropic's own API), GitHub issue, published Oct 27, 2026
  8. Hidden in Plain Sight: an Empirical Study about The Instruction Stacks of Coding AgentsIftekhar Ahmed, Associate Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine, co-author (Every stable npm release of Qwen Code, run in a sandbox with qwen3-coder-plus), Research paper, arXiv, published Oct 27, 2026
  9. Subagents start with a huge amount of context and I don't know where it comes fromLancelotbronner, GitHub user (self-described: Subagents on a local inference engine), GitHub issue, published Oct 26, 2026
  10. Headless -p (default/Auto approval): managed auto-memory can never saveSuaroman, formerly an SRE at Microsoft (self-described: Headless qwen -p on 0.26.1), GitHub issue, published Oct 26, 2026
  11. Active Goal holds ordinary user input until the Goal leaves active statep-poppe, Simply.IN (self-described: /goal runs on Qwen Code 0.26.0 and 0.26.1), GitHub issue, published Oct 26, 2026
  12. Anthropic provider: JSON side queries fail with 400 on Claude Sonnet 5.5 / Opus 5.5 (forced tool_choice not supported)princelundgren, GitHub user (self-described: Qwen Code 0.26.1 on Anthropic models), GitHub issue, published Oct 25, 2026
  13. Privacy notice says no extra data is collected with your own API key, but usage statistics are on by default for all auth typesEmanueleCell4, GitHub user (self-described: Qwen Code on a user's own API key), GitHub issue, published Oct 24, 2026
  14. After automatic compaction, the next request's size estimate counts the pending tool result twice and adds a 20K padyanyukang2003-ux, GitHub user (self-described: Long agent sessions with automatic compaction), GitHub issue, published Oct 24, 2026
  15. It's on Qwen code the pricing is difficult.qwts_chris_dev, X user (self-described: Paying for Qwen models in Qwen Code), X post, published Oct 24, 2026
  16. fix(coding-cli): adapt wrapper to qwen-code 0.25.3 --json-file semantics driftLUOSENGWA, collaborator on AgentScope's AgentTeams (self-described: AgentTeams' coding CLI runners), GitHub pull request, published Oct 20, 2026
  17. Gemini CLI and Qwen Code TOML custom commands (!{...} shell, @{...} files) are not scannedNicolai (predictor2718), member of cfgaudit (self-described: cfgaudit's scanner coverage of Qwen Code commands), GitHub issue, published Oct 19, 2026
  18. bug(vscode): the companion keeps every conversation in one globalState keywaynegault, hobby developer at NHS Grampian (self-described: The Qwen Code companion extension for VS Code), GitHub issue, published Oct 15, 2026
  19. Provider: add Qwen Code CLI adapterMario Taddeucci, collaborator on caipora-labs' Curupira (self-described: Curupira, a multi-provider agent runner), GitHub pull request, published Oct 9, 2026
  20. Comment on: Why isn't the industry freaking out about DeepSeek 4.1 Flash?jonsoft, Hacker News commenter (self-described: A local Qwen model on one DGX Spark machine), Hacker News comment, published Oct 8, 2026
  21. feat: add experimental Qwen Code worker runtimeLUOSENGWA, collaborator on AgentScope's AgentTeams (self-described: AgentTeams, which runs coding CLIs as managed workers), GitHub pull request, published Oct 8, 2026
  22. HarnessSecurity-Bench: Do Security Mechanisms Really Protect Coding Agent Harnesses?Hong-Ning Dai, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Hong Kong Baptist University, co-author (Six agent harnesses on 23 benchmark tasks, with GLM-5.2 as the model), Research paper, arXiv, published Oct 6, 2026
  23. Qwen Code adapterIdris Olubisi, owner of agent-lookout (self-described: agent-lookout, which shows coding-agent sessions side by side), GitHub issue, published Oct 5, 2026
  24. memory.agentMaxTurns ignored by user-scoped memory dream (hardcoded maxTurns = 8)alekskos, MWS (self-described: Memory settings on Qwen Code 0.25.0), GitHub issue, published Oct 5, 2026
  25. a true "disable auto-compaction" switchedwardyoon, Apache Software Foundation member at Samsung Electronics (self-described: Qwen Code on his own inference backend with KV cache offload), GitHub issue, published Sep 24, 2026
  26. Is there a coding harness that will not invalidate the entire context cache at each prompt?Academic-Tea6729, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: The Qwen Code VS Code add-on with a local model), Reddit post, published Sep 16, 2026
  27. Fireworks: Qwen3 tool-call continuation fails with 400 due to mirrored messages[].reasoningojhughes, Senior Software Engineer at Neo4j (self-described: Qwen Code with Qwen 3.8 Max on Fireworks), GitHub issue, published Sep 11, 2026
  28. launch: align Qwen Code context with Ollamaaeltawela, owner of an Ollama fork (self-described: Launching Qwen Code against local Ollama models), GitHub pull request, published Sep 5, 2026
  29. adapter wanted: Qwen Codetenequm, owner of pond (self-described: pond, which captures coding-agent sessions), GitHub issue, published Aug 31, 2026
  30. 400 Failed to initialize samplers in 0.22.3tonydiep, consultant at Tony Diep Consulting (self-described: Qwen Code 0.22.3 with local Qwen models on llama-server), GitHub issue, published Aug 29, 2026
  31. Add Qwen Code (Alibaba) coding agent integrationjcleira, member of Partio (self-described: Partio, which records coding-agent sessions in repositories), GitHub issue, published Aug 20, 2026
  32. User message dropped from follow-up request after tool call, breaking all tool use on Ollamaabdoulayesow, founder of friasoft (self-described: Qwen Code 0.21.13 with qwen3.8:27b on Ollama), GitHub issue, published Aug 19, 2026
  33. Vertex AI cannot authenticate with Application Default Credentialsaxiom-of-choice, AI/ML research engineer (self-described: Qwen Code on Vertex AI), GitHub issue, published Aug 12, 2026
  34. OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp in environment silently disables metrics export while traces keep flowingricyoung, Senior AI/NLP Scientist at Optum (self-described: Qwen Code telemetry into an OpenTelemetry collector and Prometheus), GitHub issue, published Aug 7, 2026
  35. [Desktop 0.1.0 / Windows] Bundled runtime crashes on startuporangewk, game developer (self-described: Qwen Code Desktop 0.1.0 on Windows 11), GitHub issue, published Aug 6, 2026
  36. Comment on: Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Coworkjjcm, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Trying Qwen3.8-Max in Qwen Code), Hacker News comment, published Aug 3, 2026
  37. Why My Local Coding Agent Could Act but Couldn't FinishTakafumi Endo, CEO of ROUTE06 (self-described: Qwen Code 0.14.5 with local models on llama.cpp, MacBook Pro M2 Max), Personal blog post, DEV Community, published Jul 29, 2026
  38. Qwen 3.8 Max through Qwen Code: 18,020k input tokens and $6.3 for the web app tasksenko, runs the dev agency GoodCode.io (self-described: The same web app built zero-shot in three agents), Hacker News comment, published Jul 22, 2026
  39. MCP server never successfully get tool and resource listingimrehg, Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Faculty AI (self-described: Fastmail's MCP server in Qwen Code 0.19.11), GitHub issue, published Jul 18, 2026
  40. Comment on: Claude Code sends 33k tokens before reading the prompt; OpenCode sends 7kdocheinestages, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Qwen 3.6 27B on a 48 GB laptop), Hacker News comment, published Jul 12, 2026
  41. Comment on: MCP is dead?konart, Hacker News commenter speaking for their company (self-described: A company using Qwen Code as its base agent with MCP servers for Jira, Confluence, GitLab, and in-house logs), Hacker News comment, published May 30, 2026
  42. feat: add Qwen Code as alternative runtimeDrew Raines, owner of yolo (profile company Datum) (self-described: yolo, which runs coding agents in containers), GitHub pull request, published May 30, 2026
  43. Comment on: Local AI needs to be the normstuaxo, Hacker News commenter (self-described: Hosted Qwen Code in devcontainers), Hacker News comment, published May 12, 2026
  44. Qwen-Code CLI free tier ended Apr 15 : what's the migration plan?ritzkew, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: Users of the free Qwen OAuth tier), Reddit post, published Apr 16, 2026
  45. I got it guys, I think I finally understand why you hate censored modelsrobertpro01, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: Qwen3.5-122B in Qwen Code), Reddit post, published Apr 15, 2026
  46. llama-server + qwen (code) : acknowledges tasks but silently stops working , requiring constant nudging.Althar93, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: A small local model through llama-server), Reddit post, published Apr 11, 2026
  47. My website development flowTotal_Activity_7550, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: Qwen3.5-27B on llama.cpp with two RTX 3090s), Reddit post, published Mar 29, 2026
  48. Qwen Code agent in IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 not working with local ollamadhoehmann, GitHub user (self-described: The Qwen Code plugin in IntelliJ IDEA with local Ollama models), GitHub issue, published Mar 27, 2026
  49. pathetic QwenAION-Analytics, GitHub user (self-described: A production product edited with Qwen Code), GitHub issue, published Mar 24, 2026
  50. Set up remote server code generation and autocomplete with self-hosted modelskushneryuk, r/LocalLLaMA member setting up code generation for a team (self-described: A team on VS Code Remote SSH with a self-hosted model), Reddit post, published Mar 5, 2026
  51. My real-world Qwen3-code-next local coding test. So, Is it the next big thing?FPham, r/LocalLLaMA member (self-described: Qwen3-Coder-Next on a 128 GB Mac Studio), Reddit post, published Feb 22, 2026
  52. I Ditched Claude Code and Now Using Open Source Qwen AI for Real Sysadmin WorkBhuwan Mishra, contributing author at It's FOSS (Qwen Code on an Ubuntu 25.10 VM on the free Qwen OAuth tier), Article, It's FOSS, published Feb 6, 2026
  53. It seems Qwen code does not use 'no_proxy' environment variable.Kim Se-Won, GitHub user (self-described: A company running its own Qwen3 LLM service internally), GitHub issue, published Oct 2, 2025

Oct 2025 to Oct 2026.

47 sources from practitioners, by month and sentiment.

The full readExplore all Qwen Code Signals4 praise themes, 6 concerns, 0 points of agreement and 0 disagreements across all three groups, with all 53 sources open to inspect.

Where It Fits

Where does Qwen Code belong in the stack?

Open Where It Fits: the Stack Field and the full map

Qwen Code is Core across Build, supports Plan and Validate, and touches Ship and Operate.

Business area
Product & Engineering
Function
Software Development
Operating stack
Agentic Software Development
Primary role
Open-Source Terminal Coding Agent
Qwen Code beside the rest of its stackThe Stack Field, every product on every layer
FootprintQwen Code across the Agentic Software Development stack. Bar height is its role on each layer.

  1. Plan

    1. Work planning: Supports

      Work planning, supports. Plan Mode and subagents break a task down inside the session; planning across a team stays in the tracker.

  2. Build

    1. Codebase context: Supports

      Codebase context, supports. Qwen Code reads and searches the repository with its built-in tools and LSP integration, and keeps project memory across sessions.

    2. Coding: Core

      Coding, core. This is Qwen Code's primary stack role: writing and changing code across a repository from the terminal or an editor plugin.

    3. Agent runtime: Core

      Agent runtime, core. Developers steer Qwen Code in the terminal, in VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains plugins, or in its desktop and web apps, and switch models with /model.

    4. Tool execution: Core

      Tool execution, core. Qwen Code runs shell commands and connects MCP servers, and an experimental daemon serves other clients over ACP.

  3. Validate

    1. Debugging: Supports

      Debugging, supports. Qwen Code can trace failures from error output, logs, and source in the session, with a built-in /bugfix skill.

    2. Testing: Supports

      Testing, supports. Qwen Code can write and run tests from the terminal, but it does not replace the team's test infrastructure.

    3. Code review: Supports

      Code review, supports. A built-in /review skill reviews changes on request; merge approval stays with the team.

    4. Application security: Touches

      Application security, touches. Qwen Code can review code for security issues on request, but it is not an application-security platform.

  4. Ship

    1. Source control: Touches

      Source control, touches. Qwen Code runs git commands and works in Git worktrees; Git stays the system of record.

    2. CI/CD: Touches

      CI/CD, touches. Headless mode and SDKs run Qwen Code from scripts, but Coding Plan keys are barred from automated scripts and backends, so pipelines need a pay-as-you-go key.

  5. Operate

    1. Observability: Touches

      Observability, touches. Qwen Code exports its own OpenTelemetry events, such as each prompt and tool call, but it does not provide observability.

Market mapThe layers Qwen Code covers, and who else owns each one.

  1. Coding & implementation

    CoreBuild

  2. Agent interface & developer runtime

    CoreBuild

  3. Tool execution & integrations

    CoreBuild

  4. Work planning & task decomposition

    SupportsPlan

  5. Codebase context & intelligence

    SupportsBuild

7 more layers on the full map. Core, Supports and Touches describe coverage. They say nothing about quality.

Models

Which models run in Qwen Code?

The current releases GILD tracks that public sources record running in Qwen Code. Each model's page charts its public benchmark scores.

  1. Claude Sonnet 5.5A Claude Sonnet release for everyday agentic, coding, and knowledge work.Claude SonnetBenchmarks

More on Qwen Code

  1. GILD ReviewGILD's evaluation, with the buying facts
  2. Research1 piece
  3. Guides1 guide
  4. Operator Insights3 operator accounts
  5. Where It FitsOn the Agentic Software Development stack
  6. Related Products7 products