OpenCode Just DESTROYED Claude Code?

OpenCode just destroyed Claude Code. OpenCode just dropped version 1.14.35. And if you have not been paying attention to this tool, you are about to get left behind. Because what they shipped this week is wild.

A free, open source AI coding agent, with a native desktop app. That works with Claude, with GPT, with Gemini, with pretty much any model you want, all in one place. No subscription, no lock-in. And it just got a brand new desktop chat interface that makes it feel like Cursor or Claude Code.

But free. Now I know what you are thinking. Another AI coding tool. Why do I care?

Stick with me. Because the numbers on this thing are insane. OpenCode now has over 150,000 stars on GitHub. 850 people have helped build it.

And 6.5 million developers use it every single month. That is not a small project. That is one of the biggest open source AI tools in the world right now. And most people have never even heard of it.

Let me show you why this update matters, and why it might be the most important AI tool you set up this month. So first, what even is OpenCode? In simple words, it is an AI helper that lives on your computer. You can talk to it.

You ask it to do stuff. It does the stuff. It can read files, edit files, run things, plan things, fix bugs, write whole apps. All from a chatbox on your machine.

It started as a tool that lived in the terminal. The black screen with the green text. But now it has grown into something way bigger. Here is what changed in the last few weeks.

They shipped a real desktop app. Not a web tab. A proper app. Like a real program on your computer.

You open it. You see your projects on the left side. You see your chat in the middle. You see your file changes on the right side.

It looks clean. It looks fast. And it feels like the paid tools cost 40 or 200 bucks a month. But it is free.

The new desktop beta works on Mac. On Windows. On Linux. You go to opencode.ai slash download.

You pick your version. You install it. You are done. That is the setup.

No card. No trial. Just install and go. Now let me tell you why this is a big deal.

Until now, if you wanted a nice chatbox for AI coding, you had to pay. Cursor wants 20 bucks a month. Claude Code is the same. Some of the new tools are way more.

And those are great tools. I use them. But locking everything behind a paid plan keeps a ton of small business owners out. People who just want to test stuff.

People who want to build a quick tool. People who want to try AI without a bill showing up every month. OpenCode flips that. Free models built in.

Or plug in your own model with an API key. You stay in control. Your code never gets stored on their servers. They say it themselves.

Privacy first. No code stored. No context saved. Big deal if you work with sensitive stuff like client info or private business data.

Quick example before I keep going. Let us say you run a small business. You want a simple landing page. You open the OpenCode desktop app.

You type, build me a clean landing page that explains my AI coaching service. Two minutes later. Done. You have a working page.

No team. No fiver. No waiting. Hey real quick.

If you are watching this and thinking, I want to use OpenCode but I have no clue where to start. I got you. Inside the AI profit boardroom. We have a full setup walkthrough for OpenCode.

Step by step. We show you how to install it. How to plug in free models. How to set up custom agents for your business.

We have four live coaching calls every week where you can show your screen and we will help you get OpenCode running on your machine. Plus over 2,800 business owners in the group. Many of them already using OpenCode for client work. For lead gen for content.

For internal tools. There is a member map so you can find people near you. There is a prompt library full of OpenCode prompts. And new tutorials drop every single day.

Link is in the description. Or go to AIprofitboardroom.com. Okay. Back to the update.

Let me walk you through what is new. Because it is a lot. First. The new desktop app.

This is the headline. The TUI in the terminal is still there. But the desktop version gives you a real chat window. You see your conversation.

You see file changes appear in real time. You can pop open a single agent chat in its own window. You can switch between projects on the left side. You can see your file tree on the right side.

It feels like cursor. But you are not stuck inside a code editor. The chat is the main thing. Not a side panel.

Second. Better project handling. The new builds added smart project detection for git repos. Even bare repos.

Even work trees. What does that mean in plain words? It means OpenCode now understands the shape of your project way better. You do not have to babysit it.

You point it at a folder. It figures out the rest. Third. Sessions got way smarter.

They added something called session compaction. Sounds boring. It is huge. Here is why.

When you chat with an AI for a long time. The chat gets long. The AI forgets things. With this fix.

OpenCode keeps the most recent stuff word for word. And summarizes the older stuff. So your AI keeps the local context. But still has room to think.

Long projects do not break anymore. Fourth. They added support for new models. Mistral small with high reasoning.

NVIDIA as a built in provider. GPT 5.5 with proper context limits. So if you have a free OpenAI account. Or a free NVIDIA setup.

You can plug it in. And go. Mistral medium 3.5 with reasoning is also rolling in. Fifth.

Tons of small fixes that matter. Shell mode in the prompt actually works again. So you can edit. Backspace.

Move your cursor. Like a normal box. The LSP prompts now show you the exact file. The exact line.

The exact spot. So when the agent asks for permission. You know what it is touching. UTF-8 file headers stay safe when the agent edits.

Windows installs work better. Plugin loading works better on Windows. Zed editor support got added. The system themes stop flashing in the TUI.

Small stuff. But this is the kind of polish that makes a tool go from cool. To daily driver. You stop fighting the tool.

You start shipping with it. Sixth. There is now a VS Code extension. Right inside VS Code.

You hit a keyboard shortcut. OpenCode opens in a terminal tab. You can right click any file and send it into the OpenCode chat. With that at sign mention thing.

So you can say fix the bug in at index.ts. And it knows what file you mean. Now here is where it gets really interesting. People are building stuff on top of OpenCode.

Because it is open source. Other devs are wrapping it. Adding stuff. Making it better.

There is a project called OpenGUI. A guy named AK Emmanuel built a full desktop app for OpenCode in four days. With prompt queues. So you can stack up messages while the AI is busy.

With session forking. So you can branch a chat and try two ideas at once. With session revert. Control Z to undo a whole AI exchange.

The AI gave you a bad refactor. You hit undo. Done. There is another project called Palette.

It does the same kind of thing. Multi-project. Full time streaming. Flash commands.

All mentions with the at sign. Even has a wizard that pulls in your old cursor and clawed code chats and converts them. So you do not lose your history when you switch. There is one called OpenDispatch.

It lets you control OpenCode from Slack. Microsoft Teams. You start a coding job on your laptop. You leave the house.

And you keep guiding it from your phone. Your AI keeps working while you grab lunch. This is the part most people miss. When a tool is open source and good.

The community builds wild stuff around it. Fast. That is exactly what is happening with OpenCode right now. Let me give you a real example of how a small business owner could use this.

Say you run a coaching business. You want a tool that takes a fresh lead. Sends them a welcome email. Drops them in a spreadsheet.

And books a call. With OpenCode. You can describe that in plain words. Builds the whole thing.

It is your existing files. Wires it up. Tests it. Done.

Or say you want a simple internal dashboard. To show your team how many leads came in this week. From which source. OpenCode can build it from scratch.

While you grab coffee. Or you want to build a custom landing page that shows the value of your services. The benefits of joining your community. Your coaching offer.

Your testimonials. You tell OpenCode what you want. Writes the page. You review it.

You ship it. That used to take a developer a week. Now it takes you an afternoon. This is the real shift.

FWARE is not a thing you buy from someone else anymore. It is a thing you can describe. And the AI builds it. For your exact business.

Your exact customers. Here is what is wild. A year ago. You needed a serious div to do this.

One who knew the tools. Knew the patterns. Knew the tricks. Today.

You need a clear head. A clear ask. And a tool like OpenCode. The skill is not coding anymore.

The skill is knowing what you want. And being able to say it clearly. Now let me handle a question. I know some of you are thinking.

What about Claude Code? What about Cursor? What about Copilot? Those dead now.

They are still great. Cursor has the best in editor experience. Claude Code has top tier models built in. Copilot is great if you live in VS Code already.

But here is the thing. None of those let you swap models freely. None of those are free out of the box. None of those are open source.

None of those let you self-host. None of those let you tweak the agent down to the smallest setting. OpenCode does all of that. Plays in a different lane.

This is for people who want full control. People who do not want a bill every month. People who want to plug in any model they want. People who want their data to stay on their own machine.

If you are a small business owner and you just want to ship stuff fast. Without a giant tool stack. Without a paid plan you forget to cancel. OpenCode is honestly one of the best picks right now.

Let me give you the quick start real fast. Step 1. Go to opencode.ai slash download. Pick the desktop beta for your computer.

Mac, Windows, Linux. Install it. If you like the terminal you can run a one line install command on the same site. Step 2.

Open the app. It will ask you to set up a model. You can pick the free models bundled with OpenCode Xen or plug in an API key from a provider you already have. Thropic, OpenAI, Google, Mistral, Vidia.

Lots of options. Step 3. Pick a project folder. The app will scan your files.

It will set up a session. You start chatting. Step 4. Pick your agent mode.

There are two built-in. Build mode which can edit and run stuff. Plan mode which only reads so you can plan a big change. Look at the plan and only then let it touch your code.

Plan mode is your safety net. Step 5. Run a simple test. Ask it to read your files and explain what your project does.

See if you like the answer. If you do ask it to add a small thing. A button, a page, a new email template. Watch how it works then keep going.

Pro tip. Inside your project make a file called agents.md. This file is your rules for the AI. You can write things like my brand voice is friendly, my color palette is blue and my business is an AI coaching community.

Always write code in this style. Every new session reads that file so the AI knows your stuff before you say a single word. Another pro tip is to slash commands. Hash compact will trim your session when it gets long.

Hash help shows you everything you can do. The at sign lets you mention files so you can say look at homepage.html and add a sign up form. It knows. One more thing worth knowing.

OpenCode supports MCP servers. That is a way to plug in extra tools. Like a tool that searches google. A tool that sends slack messages.

A tool that talks to your database. Your agent does not just code. Can do real business work. Pull a lead.

Update a sheet. Send a slack ping. All from one chat box. The catch.

Cp servers can blow up your context. Pick the ones you really need. Not all of them at once. Now here is what I want you to think about.

Most people are still using one AI tool. They open chat gpt. They paste stuff. They copy answers.

That is fine. But it is slow and it does not touch your real work. OpenCode lives next to your real files. Your real projects.

Your real business. Does the work. Not just the talking. If you build with it for one weekend you will look at your old workflow and laugh.

Okay to wrap this up here is the quick recap. OpenCode just hit version 1.14.35. There is now a real desktop app in beta. It works with Claude.

GPT. Gemini. Mistral. Vidya.

And more. Sessions are smarter. Project detection is better. The chat box works the way you want.

The community is shipping wild add-ons like prompt queues. Session forking. Slack control. Migration tools.

It is free. It is open source. And it does not store your code. If you have been waiting for the right time to try one of these AI coding agents.

This is the moment. Free is hard to argue with. And this is not a half-baked tool. A million people use it every month for a reason.

Last thing before you go. If you want help getting the most out of OpenCode. Come hang out inside the AI profit boardroom. We have a full 30-day roadmap built around OpenCode.

How to install it. How to set up your agents.md file. How to build small business tools with it. How to use it with free models so you never get a surprise bill.

Four live coaching calls every week with people deep in OpenCode right now. New step-by-step tutorials every single day. A prompt library full of OpenCode prompts you can copy and paste. A community of 2,800 business owners.

Many of them building landing pages. Lead funnels. Internal dashboards. And client tools with OpenCode this week.

And a member map so you can find people near you and meet up. Link is in the comments and the description. Or go to AIprofitboardroom.com. And if you want a free option first.

Join the AI Success Lab. It is our free AI community. You will get the full notes from this video. Plus over 100 AI use cases like this one.

Plus 67,000 members crushing it with AI right now. Link is in the comments and the description. Like the video if it helped. Sub for more drops like this.

And drop a comment. What is the first thing you would build with OpenCode? I read everyone. See you in the next one.