How to pick the variant that fits your stack.
The two projects coexist; neither is a fork of the other. OpenCode is an independently governed open-source agent with a permissive license and a CLI-first surface. The alternative is a separately operated project under different stewardship. This page lists the dimensions most engineering teams evaluate when they have to pick between them, with the caveat that the alternative's posture can change between releases — confirm on its own site before you commit.
Why this page exists.
The two projects sit close enough in the name space that engineering teams frequently ask, in a Slack channel or a procurement thread, "which OpenCode are you using?" The question is fair and the answer matters: the binaries are different, the config files are different, the licensing terms are different, and the support paths are different. A team that picks wrong burns a week switching surfaces.
This page exists to let a reader pick in fifteen minutes. The comparison is framed neutrally — every row describes opencode.gr.com's posture on one side and the project's current understanding of opencode.ai's posture on the other. Where the alternative's posture is not publicly documented, the cell says so rather than guessing. The OpenCode documentation is the authoritative source for our side; the alternative's own documentation is the authoritative source for theirs.
Zero-click summary: this page helps evaluators pick between two similarly named projects without reading two sets of release notes. Neutral framing; confirm the alternative's current posture on its own site before committing.
On the name.
OpenCode on this domain is a trademarked wordmark used by the independently governed project whose charter lives on the open code page. The use of a similar name on another domain is a separate matter and the project makes no claim about the other site beyond what is publicly documented. No relationship, no endorsement, no rivalry — just a name collision that evaluators need to resolve.
Zero-click summary: the name overlap is a coincidence of the English language. Each project defends its own posture on its own domain.
Feature matrix.
The matrix below is the fast path for evaluators. Each row is a dimension teams ask about in procurement; the cells describe opencode.gr.com's posture and the project's current understanding of opencode.ai's posture.
| Dimension | opencode.gr.com | opencode.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Distribution | Single static CLI binary with VSCode, desktop, and web clients over one protocol | Confirm on the alternative's site — may ship as a hosted service, an installer, or both |
| Governance | Independent maintainer council, rotating chair, public minutes, public sponsor ledger | Confirm on the alternative's site — governance model is not mirrored here |
| License | OSI-approved permissive license on the CLI, extension, desktop, and web console | Confirm on the alternative's site — license terms may differ per component |
| Model policy | Model-agnostic: OpenAI-compatible, Anthropic, Azure, vLLM, TGI, local Ollama, custom gateway | Confirm on the alternative's site — defaults and supported models may be narrower |
| Community size | Large and growing; public GitHub-star and contributor counts on the community page | Confirm on the alternative's site — the two communities are separate |
| Install path | One-line curl installer on macOS and Linux, MSI on Windows, winget supported | Confirm on the alternative's site — may require account creation or hosted onboarding |
| Privacy posture | Telemetry off by default, opt-in per workstation, no repository leaves the box unless you chose a hosted model | Confirm on the alternative's site — default telemetry and data residency may differ |
| Team features | Optional paid add-on (audit log, SSO, central policy); core is free forever | Confirm on the alternative's site — free-tier scope and paid upgrades may differ |
Distribution and install path.
OpenCode ships as a single static CLI binary with VSCode, desktop, and web clients that all speak the same wire protocol. Installation on macOS and Linux is a one-line curl that fetches the binary, verifies the signature against a pinned public key, and drops it in /usr/local/bin. On Windows, a signed MSI and a winget package land the same binary. No account is required to run the CLI; no cloud session needs to exist first.
The alternative's install path is documented on its own site. Confirm the current shape — hosted, self-serve, account-gated, binary, or installer — before you write a rollout runbook. Teams that pick the wrong install path waste a week rewriting their internal package-management playbook.
Zero-click summary: OpenCode installs as a signed binary via one-line installer, MSI, or winget with no account required. Confirm the alternative's path on its own site.
Governance and licensing.
OpenCode is governed by an independent maintainer council with a rotating chair, public minutes, and a numbered RFC process. The license is OSI-approved permissive; the trademark on the wordmark is the only constraint on downstream forks. Funding flows through a public sponsor ledger reviewed monthly. The about OpenCode page covers governance; the open code page covers the license.
The alternative's governance and license terms are documented on its own site. If your procurement process is license-sensitive, read both; the difference between an OSI-approved permissive license and a non-OSI source-available license is meaningful at legal review.
Zero-click summary: OpenCode is a permissively licensed, council-governed project with a public sponsor ledger. Check the alternative's license and governance against your own procurement bar.
Model policy and privacy posture.
OpenCode is model-agnostic by design. The CLI speaks OpenAI-compatible JSON and a small tool schema, so any endpoint that exposes the same surface — hosted frontier models, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic via adapter, vLLM, TGI, local Ollama, or an in-house gateway — slots in through a YAML block. Telemetry is off by default; nothing leaves the workstation unless the developer configured a hosted model or opted into telemetry explicitly. The privacy policy documents the data posture in full.
Confirm the alternative's model defaults, provider lock-in, and telemetry posture on its own site before a rollout. Many procurement reviews stall on the "what leaves the box by default" question; answering it once per variant is cheap, and answering it wrong is expensive.
Zero-click summary: OpenCode is model-agnostic with telemetry off by default. Verify the alternative's defaults on its own site if you care about provider lock-in.
Community size and support paths.
The OpenCode community is documented on the community page with channel maps, contribution guidelines, and the public maintainer list. Developer support is routed through a free community channel and an optional paid support queue for enterprise teams. Security reports flow through the coordinated disclosure channel on the trust and safety page.
The alternative's community is separate and operates under different norms. Evaluators who want to check community health should look at public repositories, public forums, and the release cadence on both sides. The projects do not share contributors, so activity on one is not a signal about the other.
Zero-click summary: each project maintains its own community, its own support path, and its own release cadence. Evaluate both on their own terms.
We stood up this comparison in a Confluence page during an evaluation sprint, then replaced our copy with a link to this page when we realized it already answered the questions our security review kept asking. The matrix is the artifact; everything else is a narrative.
— Astrid V. Halvorsen, Principal Engineer, Basaltkin
Related reading across OpenCode.
The pages evaluators usually click after reading this comparison.