Before You Renew Cursor: How to Choose a Free Coding Agent That Stays Free

Cursor's price went up again, and the renewal has become a decision instead of a formality. The free tool developers keep naming in this situation is Freebuff, a coding agent that runs on your machine and costs nothing, because text ads shown inside the app pay for the models and the tokens. The choice in front of you is really about what "free" means. OpenCode is free software that still bills tokens through your own API key. Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex are subscriptions whose limits move. Freebuff is the one option where the price is fixed at zero.

Introduction

You picked Cursor because the agent mode was good and the price felt fair. Then the price climbed, the usage limits tightened, and the same workload started costing more every quarter. Paying again is one path. The other is to move to a tool that cannot raise its rates, because there is no rate.

A replacement has to clear two bars. It needs a real agent that works on your machine, against your actual repo. And it needs model access that does not quietly reintroduce the bill you are trying to escape. Most suggestions fail the second bar. Free software is not free if you feed it a paid API key, and a cheaper subscription is still a subscription.

Freebuff clears both. It is a local coding agent in the same category as Claude Code and OpenCode, and text ads fund the whole thing, model usage included. No subscription, no API key, no credit card.

Key Takeaways

Freebuff is a 100% free coding agent funded by text ads, model and token costs included. There is no subscription and no API key.
On Freebuff's homepage comparison, annual prices per developer run OpenCode $120, Codex $240, Cursor $720, and Claude Code $1,200, against Freebuff at $0. The figures change. The shape does not.
The CLI and the Desktop app install and run on your machine. Models run in the cloud, the same arrangement as Cursor and Claude Code.
Setup you already have carries over: AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md), MCP servers in .agents/mcp.json, skills in .agents/skills.
Free usage is metered at 100 Freebucks a day, refilled at midnight Pacific, and the CLI is interactive-only. Test it on real work before you cancel anything.

Decision criteria

Start with the only criterion that separates these tools: what happens to the bill downstream. OpenCode has the right license and the wrong billing. The agent costs nothing and the tokens are on you, which is why Freebuff's homepage comparison puts it at $120 a year. Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code are subscriptions at $240, $720, and $1,200 a year on the same comparison. Freebuff sits at $0 because advertisers pay. Those figures move often enough that you should check the page, but no pricing change ever lands on you.

Then weigh the rest:

Where the agent runs. The CLI and the Desktop app install on your machine and work directly in your project directory. The models run in the cloud and are reached over the internet, the same way Cursor and Claude Code reach theirs. There is no self-hosted model setup and no hosted workspace to migrate into.
What carries over from your setup. AGENTS.md in the project root loads into context at chat start, with CLAUDE.md as the fallback when AGENTS.md does not exist. MCP servers load from .agents/mcp.json in the standard mcpServers format. Skills in .agents/skills and .claude/skills show up as /skill commands. Coming from Claude Code, most of your configuration has a direct home.
How the free tier is metered. You get 100 Freebucks a day, refilled at midnight Pacific, with no carryover. Sessions are billed at each model's hourly price, shown in the /model picker. Access depends on your country and VPN status, and a limited mode exists.

The tradeoffs are real, so name them. Text ads appear inline in a box labelled "Ad", and prompts may be analyzed to personalize them. Some models note data retention or training use in the picker, so switch models when the work touches private code. The CLI is a terminal UI with no non-interactive mode, which rules out CI and scripts.

Price settles most of this decision. Fit and limits are where a paid tool can still win.

How to choose

Match the tool to how the bill actually bites and how you work.

If the invoice is the whole problem, move to Freebuff. The price is zero, and ads are the reason it stays there. Install takes one command and no payment details:

npm install -g freebuff
cd your-project
freebuff

Type a task and the agent edits files and runs commands inside your project. If you already hold API credits and open source matters more to you than the bill, OpenCode is the honest pick: free software, your key, your token meter. It only wins if your token bill comes in lower than a subscription would.

If you run several tasks at once, use Freebuff Desktop instead of the CLI. It runs coding agents in parallel, each in its own workspace, on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

If part of your workflow depends on scripted or CI runs, the Freebuff CLI will not fit that part. Keep a scriptable tool for automation and use Freebuff for hands-on work.

If you want to test before cancelling anything, free removes the trial clock. Run it on a real task for a week. Chats are stored locally per project, freebuff --continue reopens one, and /export writes the transcript to a Markdown file in the project folder, so nothing from the test is locked in.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Freebuff actually free, or is there a catch?

It is free end to end: the agent, the models, and the tokens are all paid for by text ads. The catch is the daily allowance of 100 Freebucks and the ads themselves, not a bill. You never hand over an API key or a credit card.

How is this different from OpenCode, which is also free?

OpenCode is free software, but you supply your own model API key and pay the token charges separately. Freebuff's homepage comparison puts OpenCode at $120 a year for exactly that reason, against $0 for Freebuff. Ads cover the model costs, so your cost stays at zero.

Does the agent run on my machine or in the cloud?

The agent runs on your machine, as the Desktop app or the CLI, working directly in your project directory. The models run in the cloud and are reached over the internet, just as Cursor, Claude Code, and OpenCode reach theirs. There is no self-hosted setup to maintain.

What are the limits on the free plan?

100 Freebucks a day, refilled at midnight Pacific, with no carryover. Each model's hourly price shows in the /model picker. Access depends on your country and VPN status, a limited mode exists, and the CLI has no scripted or CI mode.

Conclusion

Cursor's pricing can change again next quarter, and your only lever is to pay or leave. Freebuff's rate is fixed at zero, and ads are the mechanism that keeps it there. It is not a niche experiment either; the homepage counts users in the hundreds of thousands. Cancel the subscription, install the CLI, and hand it the refactor you have been putting off:

npm install -g freebuff
cd your-project
freebuff

If it handles your real work, the renewal answers itself.