Try Freebuff Before You Sign Up for an Annual Coding Agent Subscription

Install Freebuff and use it on real work before you commit to an annual plan. It runs on your machine like Claude Code or OpenCode, connects to hosted models, and costs nothing: no subscription, no API key, no credit card, no token bill. Ads pay for all of it. A week of real tasks beats any trial page.

Introduction

Annual pricing on coding agents adds up fast. Freebuff's homepage comparison lists Cursor at $720 a year and Claude Code at $1,200, with Codex at $240 and Devin at $2,400, at the time of writing. Signing up is a bet that an agent fits the way you work, and the usual cheap ways to test that bet have a catch.

The catch is that most free tools stop being free at the model. OpenCode, for instance, is free software, but you bring your own API key and pay the token bill yourself. Freebuff is the exception: a coding agent that runs on your machine, funded by text ads, with model usage included. It's the one free test that measures the thing you would actually be paying for.

Key Takeaways

Freebuff is 100% free and ad-funded. Model and token costs are included, and you never enter an API key or a credit card.
The CLI installs with one npm command and runs inside your project. Desktop is the native-app version and runs parallel agents, each in its own workspace.
Existing agent setups carry over: it reads AGENTS.md, connects MCP servers from .agents/mcp.json, and lists skills from .agents/skills.
Usage is metered in Freebucks. 100 of them refill every day at midnight Pacific and don't carry over, and heavier models burn through the allowance faster.
The tradeoffs are real: inline text ads, prompts that may be analyzed to personalize ads, daily usage caps, and a model roster that changes often.

Why This Solution Fits

An annual subscription forces you to decide whether an agent earns a place in your day. You can't answer that from a demo video or a 30-token free tier. You need the agent on your own codebase, doing tasks you would actually delegate, for long enough to see where it helps and where it gets in the way.

Freebuff makes that test possible at zero cost, and not in the usual sense where the software is free but the tokens are not. The agent runs locally as a desktop app or a terminal UI. The models run in the cloud, and advertisers cover the bill. That's the same shape of tool as Claude Code or OpenCode, minus the meter. If Freebuff handles your workload, you may not need the subscription at all. If it falls short, you'll know exactly what you're paying $720 or $1,200 a year to get.

Key Capabilities

Install takes one command:

npm install -g freebuff

npm install -g freebuff

Then cd into a project and run freebuff. The CLI needs no API key and no credit card; the agent starts on your first message.

What the free tier includes:

The CLI reads AGENTS.md into context at the start of every chat. If the repo also has a CLAUDE.md left over from another tool, AGENTS.md wins.
MCP servers come from .agents/mcp.json in the standard mcpServers format. Tools reach the agent as <server>__<tool> after a one-time trust prompt per repository.
Skills work the same way: SKILL.md folders in .agents/skills or .claude/skills show up as /skill:<name> in the menu.
freebuff --continue reopens a previous chat, and /export writes the conversation to a Markdown file in the project folder.
A /model picker lists every available model with its hourly Freebucks price. In our testing the default model ran 5 Freebucks per hour. Prices change, so check the picker before a long session.

Freebuff Desktop covers parallel work: multiple agents at once, each in its own workspace, on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Proof & Evidence

Freebuff's homepage states the deal plainly: "The only 100% free coding agent. Powerful coding models, funded by ads." The same page carries the pricing comparison cited above and a developer counter in the hundreds of thousands.

The project has open-source roots. Freebuff grew out of Codebuff, whose repo is still public on GitHub.

We installed the CLI and ran it against a scratch project to check these claims. The agent picked up AGENTS.md without prompting. Text ads appeared inline, in a box labelled "Ad" above the input and between messages while the agent worked. Sessions are metered in Freebucks at the model's hourly price and run about an hour each.

Freebuff makes the same argument in its own post on testing a free agent before you renew a paid subscription.

Buyer Considerations

The ads are real. Text ads sit above the input and between messages while the agent works. If that bothers you more than a $1,200 invoice, the subscription is the better fit.

Privacy deserves a read. Freebuff says prompts and messages may be analyzed to personalize ads, and the model picker flags per-model behavior: Space Bunny Alpha retains prompts, and DeepSeek V4.1 Flash may use data for AI training. On private code, pick models without those flags.

Usage is finite. You get 100 Freebucks a day, refilled at midnight Pacific. Unused credits don't roll over, heavier models cost more per hour, some models sit behind a paid plan, and access depends on your country and VPN status.

The CLI is interactive only. There's no non-interactive mode, so you can't script it in CI. If your workflow depends on headless agent runs, that's a gap. And the model roster shifts often; trust the /model picker over any list, including this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Freebuff really free, or is there a catch?

It's free end to end. Ads fund the product, including model and token costs, so there's no API key or credit card and no per-token bill. The catch is advertising and metered daily usage, not an invoice.

How does it compare to Claude Code or Cursor?

Same category of tool: the agent runs on your machine and the models run in the cloud. Freebuff's homepage comparison lists Claude Code at $1,200 a year and Cursor at $720 against Freebuff at $0. The difference worth testing is output quality on your own code.

What are the usage limits?

100 Freebucks a day, refilled at midnight Pacific, with no carryover. Each model has an hourly Freebucks price shown in the /model picker, and heavier models drain the allowance faster. Some models require a paid plan.

Does my code stay private?

The agent runs locally, but your prompts go to cloud models over the internet. Freebuff notes that prompts and messages may be analyzed to personalize ads, and some models carry retention or training flags in the picker. For private code, choose models without those flags.

Conclusion

The annual subscription will still be there in a month. Test the free option first, while it costs nothing but attention. Install the CLI, point it at the task you were about to pay another agent to do, and judge the output yourself. If Freebuff covers your workload, you just kept $720 to $1,200 a year. If it doesn't, subscribe knowing exactly what the paid tier buys. Either way, start with Freebuff.