Qwen Code
Alibaba's free, open-source terminal coding agent, Gemini CLI fork
Overview
Qwen Code is Alibaba's free, open-source (Apache 2.0) terminal coding agent — a fork of Google's Gemini CLI rebuilt around Qwen3-Coder — that plugs into OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini or Alibaba Cloud backends. Built for developers who want a scriptable CLI agent, not a GUI IDE.
Pricing
Pricing shown for reference only. These figures reflect RECATOOLS research as of 3 Sep 2026 and may be out of date or incomplete. This is not financial or purchasing advice — always confirm the current price on the provider’s official website before making any decision.
What you can produce with Qwen Code
- Free, Apache 2.0 open-source CLI (26k GitHub stars)
- Terminal UI plus VS Code, Zed and JetBrains integrations
- Multi-provider auth: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Alibaba DashScope, OpenRouter, Fireworks, local models
- Auto-memory, auto-skills, sub-agents and agent-team modes
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) support out of the box
- Headless/scripting mode for CI and automation
- Built-in code-review and debugging skills
Qwen Code is what you'd expect from an open-source fork of Gemini CLI retooled for Qwen3-Coder: the same terminal-first workflow and project-context system, now provider-agnostic across OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and Alibaba's own DashScope API. Qwen3-Coder scores 69.6% on SWE-bench Verified, ahead of the Gemini 2.5 Pro it was forked from and within range of Claude Sonnet-tier models, which makes the free CLI genuinely competitive rather than a budget compromise.
The rough edge is cost predictability: Alibaba killed the free OAuth tier in April 2026, so getting good results now means either bringing your own API key (OpenRouter still lists a free qwen3-coder tier) or paying $50/month for Alibaba Cloud's Pro Coding Plan. Best for developers comfortable in a terminal who want model flexibility without vendor lock-in; GUI-first coders should look at Trae or Cursor instead.
What people say
The repository — github.com/QwenLM/qwen-code — carries 26,000 GitHub stars and 2,600 forks, with TypeScript making up over 80% of the codebase, evidence of an active open-source project rather than a marketing shell for Alibaba's models.
Independent benchmarking puts Qwen3-Coder, the model Qwen Code is built around, at 69.6% on SWE-bench Verified — ahead of Gemini 2.5 Pro's 63.8% (the model the tool was forked from) and close to Claude-tier results, though writeups comparing it directly to Claude Code note Claude still wins on autonomous multi-file coordination and has a more mature MCP tool ecosystem. For developers who want a free, competitive terminal agent, reviewers consistently point to Qwen Code over paid alternatives; for professional agentic workflows where reliability matters more than cost, the same reviewers still recommend paying for Claude Code.
The free ride got shorter in 2026. Qwen's OAuth free tier — which let anyone run the CLI against Alibaba's hosted Qwen3-Coder at no cost — was discontinued on April 15, 2026. Coverage of the shutdown points users toward OpenRouter's qwen/qwen3-coder:free endpoint or Fireworks AI as no-cost fallbacks, both usable as bring-your-own-key backends since Qwen Code is provider-agnostic by design. Alibaba's own paid path, the Cloud Coding Plan, now has a single Pro tier at $50/month (90,000 requests/month, capped at 6,000 per 5-hour window) since the cheaper Lite tier stopped accepting new subscribers on March 20, 2026.
Feature-wise, the tool ships auto-memory, auto-skills, sub-agents and agent-team modes, MCP support out of the box, and integrations for VS Code, Zed and JetBrains alongside the core terminal UI — a broader surface than a typical CLI wrapper. Because it's Apache 2.0 and model-agnostic, nothing stops you from running it against a completely different model provider, which is the strongest argument for it over closed competitors: no lock-in, and the code itself is auditable.
Summary of public user & expert reviews, compiled by RECATOOLS.
About this listing
This entry was compiled from publicly available data including Qwen Code's official website, press releases, documentation, and reputable third-party publications. RECATOOLS is not affiliated with Qwen Code unless explicitly stated.
Third-party AI tools update their pricing, features, availability, and policies frequently. Information here may be outdated by the time you read this — we make reasonable efforts to keep listings current, but cannot guarantee absolute accuracy.
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