CC can use the Flash model for sub-agents and other tasks but keep using the Pro model for the main thread and thinking there. It also has a decent permission system and commands that people are quite used to.
Personally I’d say that the closest alternative you’d get is OpenCode.
They are TUI focused and also do have a web/desktop version, though that’s not quite as good as Claude’s Desktop app (and Claude Code functionality within it) yet. The TUI itself is solid though and they support a lot of different providers and models (/connect and /models).
For GUI driven stuff, I’ve personally had good experiences with KiloCode (in Visual Studio Code, personally I also liked RooCode of which KiloCode is a fork, but that stopped development) or just using the Zed editor with their built in agent.
Personally I’d say that the closest alternative you’d get is OpenCode.
They are TUI focused and also do have a web/desktop version, though that’s not quite as good as Claude’s Desktop app (and Claude Code functionality within it) yet. The TUI itself is solid though and they support a lot of different providers and models (/connect and /models).
For GUI driven stuff, I’ve personally had good experiences with KiloCode (in Visual Studio Code, personally I also liked RooCode of which KiloCode is a fork, but that stopped development) or just using the Zed editor with their built in agent.