OpenCode Zen
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 12 LLM routers by recommenders
Recommended for cheap pay-as-you-go access to many AI models and a free tier. Critics doubt its data handling and don't know who its providers are.
Recommended for cheap pay-as-you-go access to many AI models and a free tier. Critics doubt its data handling and don't know who its providers are.
52 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 16
- approval share
- 69%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Access to many AI models
“there are so many places to get access to these models and many others for the same or less money”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “GPT-5.3-Codex” “a convenient pay-as-you-go way to try out all these new models”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Qwen3.7-Max: The Agent Frontier” “gives api rate access to lots of different models”
Comment from 17 Jul 2026 in “Kimi K3 is now live” - Comment from 27 Apr 2026 in “GitHub Copilot is moving to usage-based billing”
Cheap open and Chinese models
“I've used OpenCode Zen primarily so I can play with opensource/chinese models which are very inexpensive”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend to Zed and OpenRouter” “pay for opencode zen for the open models. I like the combo of the two”
Comment from 4 Apr 2026 in “Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to be used with OpenClaw” “Connected into MiMo or DeepSeek Zen seems to code all day.”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “AI Coding at Home Without Going Broke” - Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: $50 monthly budget, which coding models would you recommend now?”
Usable free tier
“I've been using V4 Flash Free with Hermes through Opencode Zen both personally and at my company and I've been having a great experience so far.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731” “the models I can use for free from OpenCode Zen or the free tier of Openrouter”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “The work by Valve's Timur Kristóf on improving old AMD GPUs on Linux” “I recently used the free tier to organize and rename all my documents.”
Comment from 20 Mar 2026 in “OpenCode – The open source AI coding agent” - Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “Stop Using OpenCode”
Pay-as-you-go pricing
“I like pay as you go plans since I usually don't use many tokens”
Comment from 4 Apr 2026 in “Anthropic no longer allowing Claude Code subscriptions to be used with OpenClaw” “a convenient pay-as-you-go way to try out all these new models”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Qwen3.7-Max: The Agent Frontier” “Pay $20 one time and switch between models effortlessly.”
Comment from 24 Apr 2026 in “Ask HN: Models Comparable to Opus 4.6?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unclear data logging and training
“Their own stealth model in it along with a number of the leading new models are always-on sharing data for training purposes.”
Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “I've Sold Out” “We don't have any proof they're not logging everything, by default we should assume they are”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “DeepClaude – Claude Code agent loop with DeepSeek V4 Pro, 17x cheaper” “So, by default, they read our prompts. What else is hiding ?”
Comment from 4 May 2026 in “DeepClaude – Claude Code agent loop with DeepSeek V4 Pro, 17x cheaper” - Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend to Zed and OpenRouter”
Providers and nonprofit claims unclear
“I dislike how Zen (and many similar cases, not picking on Zen here) report being not for profit or transparent”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Reallocating $100/Month Claude Code Spend to Zed and OpenRouter” “They don't state who their providers are (unlike OpenRouter).”
Comment from 21 Sep 2026 in “Grok 4.7” “they give no information on who the provider(s) are”
Comment from 22 May 2026 in “DeepSeek makes the V4 Pro price discount permanent” Pricing seems steep or limited
“Not loving the pricing with OC so will probably switch to OpenRouter once my credits are done.”
Comment from 29 Jun 2026 in “Semgrep: GLM 5.2 beats Claude in our Cyber Benchmarks” “The price different is really brutal.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731” “I burn through it ridiculously fast.”
Comment from 19 Aug 2026 in “Claude Code weekly limits reduce by a third tomorrow”
Other LLM routers people recommend
The four most recommended other LLM routers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenRouter | 666 | 321 | 67% | 13 | 6 mo8 owners | Approved |
| OpenCode ZenThis page | 36 | 16 | 69% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Cortecs | 9 | 2 | 82% | 6 | — | — |
| Amazon API Gateway | 9 | 9 | 50% | 5 | — | — |
| Cloudflare AI Gateway | 9 | 7 | 56% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 56 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the models I can use for free from OpenCode Zen or the free tier of Openrouter”
“They don't state who their providers are (unlike OpenRouter).”
“opencode actually hosts those models and can make assurances about how the data is handled”
“I burn through it ridiculously fast.”
“OpenCode (Go & Zen) are more transparent than the other gateways in the space”
“The price different is really brutal.”
“I've been using V4 Flash Free with Hermes through Opencode Zen both personally and at my company and I've been having a great experience so far.”
“The free OpenCode Zen models ... did work, for me”
“they require US hosting so they don't get new Chinese models right away”
“they still have a lot of catching up to do compared to Arc/Zen”
“I stick with OpenCode Zen (only US providers) and Together.ai (hosting themselves).”
“gives api rate access to lots of different models”
“Not loving the pricing with OC so will probably switch to OpenRouter once my credits are done.”
“now through OpenCode zen. Both where painless to get.”
“The amount the HN community, at least from what I've seen, is sleeping on OpenCode Go (and zen) is kind of amazing.”
“the only forks that actually add something meaningful are Floorp and Zen”
“Connected into MiMo or DeepSeek Zen seems to code all day.”
“they give no information on who the provider(s) are”
“a convenient pay-as-you-go way to try out all these new models”
“i've really started to love and appreciate Zen for its UI”
“So, by default, they read our prompts. What else is hiding ?”
“We don't have any proof they're not logging everything, by default we should assume they are”
“See OpenRouter and OpenCode Go/Zen for examples.”
“access to a bunch of models at token cost”
“Pay $20 one time and switch between models effortlessly.”
“they collect and might sell your data”
“I dislike how Zen (and many similar cases, not picking on Zen here) report being not for profit or transparent”
“I've used OpenCode Zen primarily so I can play with opensource/chinese models which are very inexpensive”
“Their own stealth model in it along with a number of the leading new models are always-on sharing data for training purposes.”
“I like pay as you go plans since I usually don't use many tokens”
“pay for opencode zen for the open models. I like the combo of the two”
“opencode zen (10usd) with Kimi k2.5 for the rest”
“still glad OpenCode and their Zen product exist”
“I recently used the free tier to organize and rename all my documents.”
“You can use the model through OpenCode Zen right away and avoid that Google UI craziness.”
“there are so many places to get access to these models and many others for the same or less money”
“Zen / Arc / even SigmaOS or any other browser with a sidebar”
“started paying for opencode zen. Unfortunately opencode is enough of a better product i will indeed pay 10 times the price”
“Think the cost is pretty reasonable for all apart from Anthropic.”
“I start using Zen (a fork/derivative of Firefox) alongside it with no drama or fanfare”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.