OpenCode vs Gemini CLI (2026): 75+ Providers vs 1,000 Free Gemini Requests a Day

Summary

Free Tier and Pricing

Gemini CLI's free tier is the headline. OAuth login on a personal Google account gives 60 requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day, serving a managed Gemini 3 mix of flash and pro models. If you want a specific model, an API key pins something like gemini-2.5-flash and bills at that model's API rate instead of the free quota.

OpenCode is free as software under MIT. Your only cost is the model provider you connect. Point it at a cheap local model through Ollama and you pay nothing for inference; point it at a frontier API and you pay that provider's per-token rate.

Install Commands

Model Support

OpenCode adds a custom OpenAI-compatible provider with a small JSON block:

{"provider":{"myprovider":{"npm":"@ai-sdk/openai-compatible","options":{"baseURL":"https://api.myprovider.com/v1"},"models":{}}}}

Benchmarks

Terminal-Bench 2.1 measures end-to-end terminal coding tasks. Gemini CLI with Gemini 3.1 Pro scores 70.7% (plus or minus 2.9). OpenCode is model-agnostic, so its ceiling is set by the backend you connect, not the agent itself.

The practical read: Gemini CLI's free tier ceiling is the 70.7% Gemini 3.1 Pro result. OpenCode can connect Opus 4.8 or GPT-5.5 and reach the higher entries, but you pay those providers' API rates.

MCP and Config

Both support the Model Context Protocol for tool servers. Gemini CLI configures MCP servers in ~/.gemini/settings.json. OpenCode configures providers and tools in JSON as shown above. WarpGrep, Morph's agentic code search, runs as an MCP server inside either agent and adds 2 to 3 points on SWE-bench Pro to the underlying model.

Best Model Backend for OpenCode

Because OpenCode is BYO key, the backend you choose decides quality, speed, and cost. For running DeepSeek and open-source models, where they are served matters as much as which model you pick.

Morph Open Source Models serve DeepSeek with 16-bit (bf16) activations and no fp8 or int8 quantization. Most serverless providers quantize activations to fp8 to cut cost, which degrades output quality; Morph keeps full 16-bit activations so responses match the reference weights. That makes it the best place to run DeepSeek in OpenCode when output fidelity matters. For codegen specifically, Morph runs code-tuned speculative decoding (draft and ngram tuned on code) plus custom low-level inference kernels, which makes it the fastest and highest-quality option for coding agents rather than a general-purpose menu.

See all models and pricing. Add it to OpenCode as an OpenAI-compatible provider with the JSON block above.

Decision Framework

Frequently Asked Questions

Is OpenCode or Gemini CLI better?

Gemini CLI for a free, no-setup agent (60 req/min, 1,000 req/day on a Google account). OpenCode for model freedom across 75+ providers, local models, and DeepSeek at full fidelity.

Is Gemini CLI free?

Yes. OAuth login on a personal Google account gives 60 requests per minute and 1,000 per day on a managed Gemini 3 mix. An API key pins a specific model and bills at its rate. OpenCode is free software but you pay the provider.

How many requests per day does Gemini CLI allow free?

1,000 requests per day and 60 per minute on a personal Google account, per the google-gemini/gemini-cli repository.

Can OpenCode use Gemini?

Yes, via API key. OpenCode supports 75+ providers through the AI SDK. Gemini CLI is the only one of the two that runs Gemini's managed free tier with no key setup.

Which has a better Terminal-Bench score?

Gemini CLI with Gemini 3.1 Pro scores 70.7% on Terminal-Bench 2.1. OpenCode's score depends on the backend; with Opus 4.8 (78.9%) or GPT-5.5 (83.4% via Codex) it reaches higher entries.

Which should I use?

Gemini CLI if Gemini suffices and you want zero cost and zero setup. OpenCode if you want the best model per task, local models, or DeepSeek run at full 16-bit fidelity.

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