Cline vs OpenCode vs Freebuff: what is actually free?

These are coding agents: the client organizes work, while a model supplies inference. Installing an open-source client does not make every connected model free. The table separates the documented offer from the checks still needed in your own setup.

Our first choice would depend on the work, not a blanket winner. Choose a client you can understand, an access route you can afford, and a task whose result you can check. The recommendations below are editorial judgments based on those conditions.

Cline’s promotion documentation restricts free-model usage to the IDE extension and CLI, excluding its API. Local inference is another route using your own runtime and hardware. A provider’s promotion does not transfer to a local model, and a free client is not a free API allocation.

OpenCode’s model documentation describes temporary free offers with model-specific data rules. Some entries describe no training or retention; others permit improvement use. Read the exact entry rather than treating the client’s general privacy message as the policy for every inference provider.

Freebuff’s live CLI and homepage describe access without tracking credits, while its provider article still describes 100 Freebucks per day. We cannot resolve that difference from these public pages. The article’s hour estimates are not a promise of completed tasks or an allowance to add across every model. Check your actual product and account.

The exercise below is original and untested. It is a way to collect your own decision evidence, not a benchmark result. Use invented input and request an explanation first, so a missing account entitlement does not interrupt changes to a real project.

Practice request: Explain a JavaScript function that receives [{name: 'Ada', active: true}, {name: 'Ben', active: false}] and returns only active names without changing the original list. Show the expected output, an empty-list case and one test idea. Keep the response under 150 words. Do not read files, run commands or edit anything.

We did not run a controlled three-tool coding test, measure speed or determine a numerical free quota. The separate October 17 OpenCode check used installed version 1.18.21 and received HTTP 403 on one free-model question. The current website points to OpenCode 2; that older failure does not prove every current client fails or identify its cause.

The individual listings retain their own catalog verification dates. Their practical guides explain the newer documentation review and uncertainties. This comparison does not turn an advertised model, a client installation or a provider demo into a successful FreeAIList test.