Freebuff vs Gemini CLI: Google’s free coding agent is gone. Freebuff’s is still here.
Google cut Gemini CLI’s free tier to Flash in March and stopped serving free users in June, moving them to a closed-source tool with unpublished weekly limits.
In short
- Our verdict: Freebuff. We make Freebuff, so weigh that, but every claim below links to a source you can check.
- Free Gemini CLI no longer exists. Google limited the free tier to Flash models in March 2026, and on June 18 stopped serving free and consumer users entirely.
- Its replacement is closed source with unpublished limits. Antigravity CLI gives free users "a meaningful quota, refreshed weekly", with limits "primarily determined by available capacity".
- Freebuff is free for a full day of work, every day. Unlimited messages in every hour-long session, a published daily allowance with no monthly cap (up to 30 hours a day in the US), and models that never touch the allowance at all.
For about nine months, Gemini CLI was the best free deal in AI coding: an open-source agent with 1,000 free requests a day. Then Google took it away in two steps. If you came here looking for a free terminal agent that is still free, Freebuff is the one to use.
What happened to free Gemini CLI
- March 2026: Flash only. Google announced that from March 25, "Free tier users will be limited to Gemini Flash models". The announcement drew 1,039 thumbs-down against 136 thumbs-up.
- June 18, 2026: shut off. Google’s developer blog said Gemini CLI would "stop serving requests" for free Code Assist users and for Google AI Pro and Ultra, moving them to Antigravity CLI and admitting "there won’t be 1:1 feature parity". Gemini CLI now works only with paid API keys or enterprise licenses.
- The replacement is closed source. The Hacker News thread on the shutdown (406 points) noted that Antigravity CLI is not open source, and contributors asked whether it ever will be.
- Its limits are not published. Antigravity’s plans page promises free users "a meaningful quota, refreshed weekly" and says limits are "primarily determined by available capacity".
At a glance
| Feature | Freebuff | Gemini CLI / Antigravity CLI |
|---|---|---|
| Free terminal agent today | Yes | Gemini CLI: no. Antigravity CLI: yes, weekly quota |
| Published free limits | Yes: a daily allowance, up to 30 hours in the US | No: "determined by available capacity" |
| Allowance resets | Every day | Every week |
| How usage is counted | Hour-long sessions with unlimited messages | Requests against a weekly quota |
| Unmetered models | Yes: Solar Mini 4, Solar Pro 4, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Fast for new accounts in top-tier countries | No |
| Open-source client | CLI and SDK | Antigravity CLI is closed source |
| Where it runs | CLI, Mac/Windows/Linux desktop, browser, iOS and Android | CLI and the Antigravity desktop app |
What Freebuff gives you for free
- Unlimited messages in every session. A session lasts an hour, and the agent can read, edit, test and retry as many times as it needs inside it.
- A published daily allowance with no monthly cap. Up to 30 hours a day in the US, and 21 in countries such as Canada, the UK and Germany. That is 10 hours a day of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, refilled every day, not every week.
- Unmetered models. Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 never use your allowance. New accounts in the US and other top-tier countries also get DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Fast without touching it.
- Same terminal workflow.
npm install -g freebuff, then runfreebuffin your project. See the Freebuff CLI. There is also a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, the web workspace, and apps for iOS and Android.
What Gemini CLI users are saying
- Rate limits and capacity errors. Google’s tracking issue for 429 and capacity errors has 131 comments. A paid user reported "Usage limit reached" with the meter showing 1–8% used.
- Silent switches to Flash. Users reported being moved from Pro to Flash after 10 calls: "Shouldn’t I have 1000 daily calls of Gemini Pro?"
- Stuck on small edits. An issue with 165 reactions reports the agent stuck for over an hour on edits to one to three files.
- The move to Antigravity. A paying user reported Antigravity CLI hitting its daily limit after two prompts, and a former Gemini CLI user on Google’s own forum called Antigravity "the biggest piece of junk, with all due respect".
What Freebuff users are saying
For me probably one of the best inventions of the LLM era. I can’t describe how much benefits I got accessing these models for free
as a broke student this will help me a lot I LOVE YOU GUYS
Our verdict
Pick Freebuff. Google’s free coding agent was cut to Flash, then switched off, then replaced with a closed tool whose limits depend on capacity. Freebuff gives you unlimited messages in every session and a published allowance that refills every day, in the terminal, on every desktop, in the browser and on your phone.
Try Freebuff for free
No card, no API key. `npm install -g freebuff`
Questions
Is Gemini CLI still free?
No. Google limited the free tier to Flash models from March 25, 2026, and from June 18, 2026 Gemini CLI stopped serving free and consumer users. It still works with paid Gemini API keys and enterprise Code Assist licenses.
What replaced Gemini CLI?
Antigravity CLI, a closed-source tool. Google says free users get "a meaningful quota, refreshed weekly", with limits determined by available capacity; it does not publish numbers.
What is the best free Gemini CLI alternative?
We think Freebuff, and we make it. It is a free terminal agent with unlimited messages in every hour-long session and a published daily allowance with no monthly cap, plus a desktop app, a browser workspace and iOS and Android apps.
How much can I use Freebuff for free?
Each session is an hour with unlimited messages. A free account gets up to 30 hours of allowance a day in the US (10 hours of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash), refilled daily, and some models, such as Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4, never use the allowance.