Freebuff vs Roo Code: Roo Code shut down, Freebuff is free every day
Roo Code’s extension, Cloud and Router shut down on May 15, 2026, and its repo is archived. If you need a new agent, Freebuff is free, needs no API key, and is still shipping.
In short
- Our verdict: Freebuff. We make Freebuff, so weigh that, but every claim below links to a source you can check.
- Roo Code is gone. Its team shut down the VS Code extension, Roo Code Cloud and Roo Code Router on May 15, 2026, and archived the repo. roocode.com now redirects to the team’s new product.
- An archived extension gets no fixes. Open issues, including a critical auto-approve bypass reported in May, will stay open.
- Roo was never free to run. The extension was free, but you paid per token through your own keys or its router.
- 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, and no API key.
Roo Code had more than 3 million downloads and a loyal following for its modes and model choice. Then its team decided that, in their words, "we don’t believe IDEs are the future of coding", and shut it down. If you are one of the people still looking for a replacement, Freebuff is the better choice: free, actively maintained, and with no API key to set up.
At a glance
| Feature | Freebuff | Roo Code |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Actively developed | Shut down May 15, 2026; repo archived |
| Cost to run | A full day of work free, every day | Per token, through your keys or its router |
| API key needed | No | Yes, or Roo router credits |
| Security fixes | Ongoing | None, now archived |
| Where it runs | Terminal, desktop, browser, iOS, Android | VS Code (no longer listed) |
What happened to Roo Code
On April 20, 2026, the team announced it was "sunsetting the Roo Code suite of tools on May 15th", including the VS Code extension, Roo Code Cloud and Roo Code Router, and would "refund any unused balances, and archive the Roo Code Extension repo." The GitHub repo is now archived, its README says "The Roo Code Extension was shut down on May 15th", and roocode.com redirects to Roomote, the team’s new self-hosted cloud agent.
Even when it was running, Roo Code was free to install but not to use. Its pricing page described the extension as "Free + inference": you paid per token through your own API keys or its router, at no markup, and its cloud agents cost "$5 /hour in credits" on top.
What Freebuff gives you for free
- No API key, no token bill. Install the CLI and sign in. The models are included.
- 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 loop costs you nothing.
- 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. Right now, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 never touch it.
- Everywhere you work. The CLI runs in VS Code’s terminal or any other, and there is a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux, the web workspace, and apps for iOS and Android.
What Roo Code users ran into
Roo Code’s last months of GitHub issues show what a per-token agent costs when it goes wrong, and none of them will now be fixed:
- Retries forever. February 2026: with no circuit breaker for some API errors, "The infinite loop consumes API tokens on each failed attempt". #11762
- Reading the same file again and again. January 2026, with 65 comments: "it gets into a repeating state trying to read a file over and over again." #11071
- Cost or a broken workflow. A context-condensing regression left users "to choose between high cost or a broken workflow." #11785
- A security bug left open. In May 2026, a week before shutdown, a user reported a critical auto-approve bypass: the agent could still run a command they had put on the denied list, without approval. It is still open. #12292
What Freebuff users are saying
The FreeBuff CLI UX feels great!! i love the Polish that you guys have put into it so far in recent updates
It has been reliable, useful, and has helped me complete complex technical and development work efficiently.
Where Roo Code was strong
Roo Code was Apache-licensed, worked with almost any model provider, and its Code, Architect, Ask and Debug modes were genuinely loved. Its code is still on GitHub, its team recommended Cline, its community started a fork called ZooCode, and Kilo Code offers a similar extension. If you want a per-token VS Code extension, those are the honest successors.
Our verdict
Pick Freebuff. Roo Code is shut down and will get no more fixes, and even its successors bill you per token. Freebuff is actively developed, needs no API key, and gives you unlimited messages in every session and a published allowance that refills every day.
Try Freebuff for free
No card, no API key. `npm install -g freebuff`