I bought a new 16GB GPU and decided to test something. I thought Claude Code would eat the open-source competition for breakfast. I expected it to crush any local rival on a single, consumer-grade GPU. I was wrong.

The setup was simple. I installed OpenCode on my machine, pointed it at Qwen3.6-35B-A3B, and gave it the same task I'd been wrestling with for a week. Claude Code used to own my 20 USD/month subscription. I expected it to handle this easily.

It didn't.

What I set up

I'm a solo developer. I don't have a cluster of servers or a million-dollar budget. I have a 16GB GPU, a laptop, and a set of tasks that need solving. My go-to tool has been Claude Code. I've been paying for it every month since it launched. I assumed it would be unbeatable.

OpenCode changed that. It's free, open source, MIT licensed, and works with 75+ model providers. You can run local models, use cloud APIs, or anything in between. No lock-in. No vendor gates.

The test was straightforward. I gave both the same coding task.…