Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode • Hacker News Board

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#301

Post by 827a » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:16 AM UTC

websap wrote: post #279

827a wrote: post #98

I'm really struggling to understand how Anthropic is benefited by not allowing this. Its bad PR for no good reason. The only thing I can figure is that Claude Code is hemorrhaging money, they're too afraid to actually enforce reasonable token limits, and the only thing that's keeping it from totally bankrupting the company tomorrow is: controlling the harness and having the harness dynamically route toward Haiku or S…

There are a plethora of models that you can use with open code. Anthropic is well within its rights to limit third-party usage of services that violate the TOS. As a Claude code user I’d much rather have the very best experience on Claude code than the largest supportability matrix for Anthropic models.

Well, the challenge for Anthropic's users is: While Anthropic has fantastic coding models right now, they have a bad harness in claude code and the claude desktop app. The best experience using Anthropic's models is OpenCode and Cursor. This wasn't true ~3 months ago, and may return to being untrue in ~3 months, that's how fast these things change, but right now this is the case. Unfortunately, Anthropic models in OpenCode/Cursor are tremendously expensive; and that gets at some of the leading theories on why CC has degraded recently; that Anthropic has been forced to dynamically route more of the agentic process onto Sonnet/Haiku, or reduce the Opus thinking budget.

For all of these reasons, currently, the meta is ChatGPT subscription on Codex or OpenCode. But, again, these things change every few weeks.

I don't think this is as clean-cut as just saying "Anthropic is in their rights" etc. Of course, they are, to whatever degree they are; the bigger problem is that you've got $100/mo and $200/mo Claude subscriptions who are actively saying "the $20/mo Codex subscription is better in every way", possibly because of these thinking budget/routing changes people suspect have happened this month. In other words: Anthropic is at-capacity after the DoW incident, they need to load shed, and they've chosen to harm their high-paying power users and Enterprise over just temporarily slowing growth a bit by hurting the $20/mo plan. And, frankly, they might be right: because for every $200/mo user that jumps over to ChatGPT, half of them will be back once Anthropic can scale capacity, and if they can gain 20x $20/mo users who only use half their sub, that's a win.

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#302

Post by bloody-crow » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:18 AM UTC

esperent wrote: post #294

malisper wrote: post #188

Since there's a lot of questions about what this means, let me explain. Anthropic has two different products that are relevant here: the Claude API and Claude Code. The Claude API has usage based pricing. The more you use, the more you pay. With Claude Code, you can get a monthly subscription which gives you a fixed amount of usage. Comparing equivalent token generation between the Claude API and Claude Code, Claude…

> Anthropic has two different products that are relevant here: the Claude API and Claude Code. No, the two relevant products are Claude API vs Claude subscription. There's no "Claude Code subscription". There's just a subscription for all Claude services at once.

The $20/mo Pro subscription only allows regular chat and Claude Code and does not allow you to export your API key without reverse engineering CC. The higher tiers allows console and direct API usage.

Basically, the concept of Claude-Code having its own API tier holds.

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#303

Post by tallesborges92 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:35 AM UTC

This is really sucks, it’s a bad move for Anthropic, OpenAI is allowing using their models in third parties apps and the china models as well …

I don’t believe Anthropic will win this battle.

I just want to use the tools in a way and customized way that I want, Anthropic not allowing me to me to do that forced me to use the codex models, thanks for that I’m very happy with the results. I’m cheering for OpenAI

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#304

Post by ninjagoo » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:36 AM UTC

achompas wrote: post #300

ninjagoo wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m sorry but you’re demonstrably incorrect. Please so demonstrate?

The onus isn’t on me. It’s on anyone contradicting findings by most benchmarks, because most of them show a clear advantage for Opus and GPT over OSS models.

So Big Claim No Demonstration? :-)

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#305

Post by 627467 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:41 AM UTC

Hey its not suing me so i guess i shouldnt care?

But what is the argument here? "OpenCode facilitates the users of their opensource tool to misuse another app they have installed"?

I guess anything goes with ip law really. Its all about flexing lawyer power and willingness to drown opponents in legal costs.

Maybe if you dont want people to misuse your sub dont ship the ability to do so in the app that users actually installed on their machines?

This is the same as all the alternative youtube clients. Just play the cat and mouse game Anthropic

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#306

Post by mech422 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:45 AM UTC

malisper wrote: post #188

Since there's a lot of questions about what this means, let me explain. Anthropic has two different products that are relevant here: the Claude API and Claude Code. The Claude API has usage based pricing. The more you use, the more you pay. With Claude Code, you can get a monthly subscription which gives you a fixed amount of usage. Comparing equivalent token generation between the Claude API and Claude Code, Claude…

The part I never really understood, was I thought the subscriptions were to try and boost Opus usage, not claude code usage ? I'm not sure why they care whether you use API or claude, as they limit the number of tokens you can use anyway - and once the request hits the model, I would have thought it takes the same amount of effort to process it regardless of where it comes from ?

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#307

Post by cruffle_duffle » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:46 AM UTC

faangguyindia wrote: post #296

malisper wrote: post #188

Since there's a lot of questions about what this means, let me explain. Anthropic has two different products that are relevant here: the Claude API and Claude Code. The Claude API has usage based pricing. The more you use, the more you pay. With Claude Code, you can get a monthly subscription which gives you a fixed amount of usage. Comparing equivalent token generation between the Claude API and Claude Code, Claude…

Claude code might be subsidized but there are other risks Like if any agent can use claude models then it exposes them to distillation risk. Where data gathered from millions of such agent usage can easily be used to train a model, making their model superiority subpar Second thing is, to improve their own coding model, you need predictable input. If input to their model is all over the place (using different harness…

> Cache is money saver in computing. Their own client might be lot better at caches than any other agent so they do not want to lose money yet end up with disgrunted customer that claude isn't working as good

I’d bet a reasonable amount that this could be the case. They are very well incentivized to maximize cache use when it’s basically not pay per token.

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#308

Post by TiredOfLife » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 12:57 AM UTC

runako wrote: post #59

mellosouls wrote: post #2

This and threatening OpenClaw (now at OpenAI), Anthropic really on a roll making friends in Open Source. Previously discussed I think: Anthropic Explicitly Blocking OpenCode (173 points, 157 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46625918

> threatening OpenClaw IIRC it was called Clawdbot when Anthropic complained. IANAL but I believe the holder of a trademark is obligated to defend it against infringement. Hard to say that Clawdbot was not potentially infringing, given its purpose. It's not clear how much leeway Anthropic had given his initial choice of name.

And what relation does Anthropic or Claude have woth the name Clawdbot

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#309

Post by adampunk » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:04 AM UTC

gwd wrote: post #297

adampunk wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't go after OpenCode because they allow for arbitrage. You go after them because they can decouple your model from your brand.

Before this change: Opencode decouples model (Claude) from brand (Claude Code) in one of two ways: using the subscription, or pay-per-use API calls After this change: Opencode decouples model from brand in one way: pay-per-use API calls This change fails to prevent decoupling model from brand.

Do you have an anthropic API key with money attached to that account? Do you think most people who have a subscription to Claude code have an API key for Anthropic and have money attached to that that they’re ready to spend?

Do you think those people who have an API key are ready to just give it to some random application rather than being directed to a Web or application based sign on mechanism serve served by a company they trust?

Even if the consumers are programmers, an API key is not a consumer instrument. There is no universe where you convert a whole number percentage of users in the scenario.

Re: Anthropic takes legal action against OpenCode

#310

Post by maxaw » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 1:10 AM UTC

mech422 wrote: post #306

malisper wrote: post #188

Since there's a lot of questions about what this means, let me explain. Anthropic has two different products that are relevant here: the Claude API and Claude Code. The Claude API has usage based pricing. The more you use, the more you pay. With Claude Code, you can get a monthly subscription which gives you a fixed amount of usage. Comparing equivalent token generation between the Claude API and Claude Code, Claude…

The part I never really understood, was I thought the subscriptions were to try and boost Opus usage, not claude code usage ? I'm not sure why they care whether you use API or claude, as they limit the number of tokens you can use anyway - and once the request hits the model, I would have thought it takes the same amount of effort to process it regardless of where it comes from ?

It’s definitely to encourage Claude code usage. Owning the interface through which your core product is delivered is a hedge against the commoditisation that everyone talks about. Eg, it’s much harder to switch from Claude code to cursor or vice versa than it is to switch between models in cursor (I sometimes don’t even notice model defaulting to composer inside cursor)