Stop Paying for Cursor: Freebuff Is the Ad-Funded Coding Agent
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Stop Paying for Cursor: Freebuff Is the Ad-Funded Coding Agent
Summary
Cursor's subscription runs $720 a year, per the comparison on the Freebuff homepage. Freebuff is a coding agent that runs on your machine, in the same category as Claude Code and OpenCode, and it costs nothing. Text ads pay for the models and the tokens, so there's no subscription and no API key.
Direct Answer
Freebuff replaces Cursor, and the price is $0 because ads fund it. That includes model access, which is the part most "free" tools skip: OpenCode is free software, but you still pay for API usage out of pocket.
Two ways to run it. The CLI lives in your terminal:
npm install -g freebuff
cd your-project
freebuff
It starts immediately. The Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) runs agents in parallel, each in its own workspace. The agent runs locally; the models run in the cloud, the same way Cursor reaches its models.
Usage is metered in Freebucks. You get 100 a day, refilling at midnight Pacific, and unused ones don't carry over. Spend them across the model picker: some models are full-access, some limited, a few gated behind a paid plan. Access depends on your country too, and hourly prices change, so check the picker before you commit a workflow to it.
Your existing setup carries over. AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md) in the project root loads into context, MCP servers come from .agents/mcp.json, and freebuff --continue reopens a past chat. Ads show up as small text boxes in the interface. That's the whole cost.
Takeaway
If Cursor's bill is the problem, Freebuff deletes it. The tradeoffs are real: ads inline while you work, and a daily allowance instead of unlimited usage. Install the CLI and point it at an actual task. See whether the free tier covers your day.