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Comment by dboon

1 day ago

This is an unusual L for Anthropic. The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code. Obviously, CC is a great tool, but that's more about the magic of the model than the engineering of the CLI.

The opencode team[^1][^2] built an entire custom TUI backend that supports a good subset of HTML/CSS and the TypeScript ecosystem (i.e. not tied to Opencode, a generic TUI renderer). Then, they built the product as a client/server, so you can use the agent part of it for whatever you want, separate from the TUI. And THEN, since they implemented the TUI as a generic client, they could also build a web view and desktop view over the same server.

It also doesn't flicker at 30 FPS whenever it spawns a subagent.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many QoL features in opencode that put CC to shame. Again, CC is a magical tool, but the actual nuts and bolts engineering of it is pretty damning for "LLMs will write all of our code soon". I'm sorry, but I'm a decent-systems-programmer-but-terminal-moron and I cranked out a raymarched 3D renderer in the terminal for a Claude Wrapped[^] in a weekend that...doesn't flicker. I don't mean that in a look-at-me way. I mean that in a "a mid-tier systems programmer isn't making these mistakes" kind of way.

Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic. I get that opencode shouldn't have been authenticating this way. I'm not saying what they are doing is a rug pull, or immoral. But there's a reason people use this tool instead of your first party one. Maybe let those world class systems designers who created the runtime that powers opencode get their hands on your TUI before nicking something that is an objectively better product.

[^1] https://github.com/anomalyco/opentui

[^2] From my loose following of the development, not a monolith, and the person mostly responsible for the TUI framework is https://x.com/kmdrfx

[^3] https://spader.zone/wrapped/

My favorite is running CC in a screen session. There if I type out a prompt and then just start holding down the backspace key to delete a bunch of characters, at some point they key press refresh rate outruns CC’s brains and it just starts acting like it moved the cursor but didn’t delete anything. It is an embarrassing bug, but one that I suspect wouldn’t be found in automated testing.

  • Talking about embarrassing bugs, Claude chat (both web and iOS apps) lately tend to lose the user message when there is a network error. This happens every day to me lately. It is frustrating to retype a message from memory, first time you are "in the flow" second time it feels like unjust punishment.

    With all the Claude Code in the world how come they don't write good enough tests to catch UI bugs? I have come to the point where I preemptively copy the message in clipboard to prevent retyping.

    • This is an old bug. I cant believe they haven't fixed it yet. My compliments for the Claude frontend start and end at artifacts.

  • If you want to work around this bug, Claude Code supports all the readline shortcuts such as Ctrl-W and Ctrl-U.

  • Have you tried tmux?

    • unfortunately it's buggy in tmux as well. last night I couldn't hit esc after a long, long session as it simply ignored the key. doesn't happen outside of tmux.

> Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic.

Why? A few times in this thread I hear people saying "they shouldn't have done this" or something similar but not given any reason why.

Listing features you like of another product isn't a reason they shouldn't have done it. It's absolutely not embarrassing, and if anything it's embarrassing they didn't catch and do it sooner.

  • Because the value proposition that has people pay Anthropic is that it's the best LLM-coding tool around. When you're competing on "we can ban you from using the model we use with the same rate limits we use" everyone knows you have failed to do so.

    They might or might not currently have the best coding LLM - but they're admitting that whatever moat they thought they were building with claude code is worthless. The best LLM meanwhile seems to change every few months.

    They're clearly within their rights to do this, but it's also clearly embarrassing and calls into question the future of their business.

    • > Because the value proposition that has people pay Anthropic is that it's the best LLM-coding tool around.

      Why not just use a local LLM instead? That way you don't have to pay anyone.

      2 replies →

  • It is embarrassing to restrict an open source tool that is (IMO) a strictly and very superior piece of software from using your model. It is not immoral, like I said, because it's clearly against the ToC; but it's not like OC is stealing anything from Anthropic by existing. It's the same subscription, same usage.

    Obviously, I have no idea what's going on internally. But it appears to be an issue of vanity rather than financials or theft. I don't think Anthropic is suffering harm from OC's "login" method; the correct response is to figure out why this other tool is better than yours and create better software. Shutting down the other tool, if that's what's in fact happening, is what is embarrassing.

    • > It is embarrassing to restrict an open source tool that is (IMO) a strictly and very superior piece of software from using your model.

      > Shutting down the other tool, if that's what's in fact happening, is what is embarrassing.

      To rephrase it different as I feel my question didn't land. It's clear to me that you think it's embarrassing. And it's clear what you think is embarrassing. I'm trying to understand why you think it's embarrassing. I don't think it is at all.

      Your statements above are simply saying "X is embarrassing because it's embarrassing". Yes I hear that you think it's embarrassing but I don't think it is at all. Do you have a reason you can give why you think it's embarrassing? I think it's very wise and pretty standard to not subsidize people who aren't using your tool.

      I'm willing to consider arguments differently, but I'm not hearing one. Other than "it just is because it is".

      7 replies →

  • As a user it is because I can no longer use the subscription with the greater tooling ecosystem.

    As for Anthropic, they might not want to do this as they may lose users who decide to use another provider, since without the cost benefit of the subscription it doesn't make sense to stay with them and also be locked into their tooling.

    • The subscription is for their products? If you want to use their models in another product you can pay for the API usage.

      5 replies →

  • The Claude plans allow you to send a number of messages to Anthropic models in a specific interval without incurring any extra costs. From Anthropic's "About Claude's Max Plan Usage" page:

    > The number of messages you can send per session will vary based on the length of your messages, including the size of files you attach, the length of current conversation, and the model or feature you use. Your session-based usage limit will reset every five hours. If your conversations are relatively short and use a less compute-intensive model, with the Max plan at 5x more usage, you can expect to send at least 225 messages every five hours, and with the Max plan at 20x more usage, at least 900 messages every five hours, often more depending on message length, conversation length, and Claude's current capacity.

    So it's not a "Claude Code" subscription, it's a "Claude" subscription.

    The only piece of information that might suggest that there are any restrictions to using your subscription to access the models is the part of the Pro plan description that says "Access Claude Code on the web and in your terminal" and the Max plan description that says "Everything in Pro".

  • It is embarrassing, because it means they’re afraid of competition. If CC was so great, at least a fraction of they sell it, they wouldn’t need to do it.

I've used both CC and OpenCode quite a bit and while I like both and especially appreciate the work around OpenTUI, experience-wise I see almost no difference between the two. Maybe it's because my computer is fast and I use Ghostty, but I don't experience any flickering in CC. Testing now, I see typing is slightly less responsive in CC (very slightly: I never noticed until I was testing it on purpose).

We will see whether OpenCode's architecture lets them move faster while working on the desktop and TUI versions in parallel, but it's so early — you can't say that vision has been borne out yet.

An engineer on my team who is working on TUI stuff said that avoiding the flicker is difficult without affecting the ability to copy/paste using the mouse (something to do with "alternate screen mode"). I haven't used OpenCode (yet) but Google does turn up some questions (and suggested workarounds) around copy/paste.

Interesting that [1] is 30% zig as well as mostly typescript. That's a lot of native code for something that runs in a terminal (i.e. no graphical code required).

I am curious, I haven't faced any major issues using claude code in my daily workflow. Never noticed any flickering either.

Why do you think opencode > CC? what are some productivity/practical implications?

  • Opencode has a web UI, so I can open it on my laptop and then resume the same session on the web from my phone through Tailscale. It’s pretty handy from time to time and takes almost zero effort from me.

    The flickering is still happening to me. It's less frequent than before, but still does for long/big sessions.

> The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code

I'm curious, what made you think of that?

> Anyway, this is embarrassing for Anthropic. I get that opencode shouldn't have been authenticating this way. I'm not saying what they are doing is a rug pull, or immoral. But there's a reason people use this tool instead of your first party one. Maybe let those world class systems designers who created the runtime that powers opencode get their hands on your TUI before nicking something that is an objectively better product.

This is nothing new, they pulled Claude models from the Trae editor over "security concerns." It seems like Anthropic are too pearl-clutching in comparison to other companies, and it makes sense given they started in response to thinking OpenAI was not safety oriented enough.

inb4 Anthropic acquires Opencode

  • I actually wouldn't be that surprised by this. I'd be more surprised at the OC people folding (not the right word, but you get it) on some pretty heavy ambitions in favor of an acquisition.

    • the right word, keeping with card playing and poker terms would be book a win or win the hand, scoop the pot

> The unfortunate truth is that the engineering in opencode is so far ahead of Claude Code.

If only Claude Code developers had access to a powerful LLM that would allow them to close the engineering gap. Oh, wait...

Update: Ah, I see this part: "This credential is only authorized for use with Claude Code and cannot be used for other API requests."

Old comment for posterity: How do we know this was a strategy/policy decision versus just an engineering change? (Maybe the answer is obvious, but I haven't seen the source for it yet.) I skimmed the GitHub issue, but I didn't see discussion about why this change happened. I don't mean just the technical change; I mean why Anthropic did it. Did I miss something?

Or just maybe submit feature requests instead of backdooring a closed source system.

  • All the TUI agents are awful at scrolling. I'm on Ubuntu 24.04 and both Claude Code and Gemini CLI absolutely destroy scrolling. I've tested Claude Code in the VS Code and it's better there, but in the Gnome Terminal it's plain unusable.

    And a lot of people are reporting scrolling issues.

    As someone was saying, it's like they don't have access to the world's best coding LLM to debug these issues.

    • I use Claude Code every day and it works perfectly fine outside of a few bugs (they broke ESC interrupt in 2.1).

      I just don’t understand the misplaced anger at breaking TOS (even for a good reason) and getting slapped down.

      Like what did anyone think would happen?

      We all want these tools and companies to succeed. Anthropic needs to find profit in a few years. It’s in all of our best interests to augment that success, not bitch because they’re not doing it your way.

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