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Freebuff is a free AI coding agent from Freebuff, Inc., the company that also runs Codebuff. Text ads pay for the included models, so the base plan costs $0 and asks for no card or API key. You can run it as a CLI (npm install -g freebuff), a desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, or in the browser. Paid plans at $8, $25 and $60 a month add more daily hours and the full model list.

The source lives at CodebuffAI/freebuff under Apache-2.0. On AI Rank's October 19, 2026 snapshot the repo had 13,606 stars, gained 173 in seven days and ranked #687 overall. The old CodebuffAI/codebuff URL now redirects to the same repository.

Products and Platforms

The README describes "five free AI products for coding, building, and research": Desktop, CLI, Web, Cloud and Chat. The website has moved on in two places. The freebuff.com/cloud page says Freebuff Cloud is deprecated; existing projects are still listed there, but new work should start in the web workspace or the desktop app. The original Freebuff Web builder at /web was deprecated on October 9, 2026 and replaced by Freebuff App Builder.

Product Status on freebuff.com What it does
CLI Active Coding agent in any terminal
Desktop Active macOS (Apple Silicon, Intel), Windows (64-bit, Arm64, older PCs), Linux (.deb, AppImage)
Web Active Coding agent in the browser
App Builder Active Builds apps with sign-in, databases and publishing
Chat Active General AI chat
Mobile Android now, iOS "soon" Start tasks and review changes from a phone
Cloud Deprecated Ran agents on a connected GitHub repo

Install the CLI

The quick start in the README is three commands:

npm install -g freebuff
cd ~/my-project
freebuff

The npm package freebuff was at version 0.2.30 on October 19, 2026 and declares Node.js 16 or newer. The package metadata lists an MIT license, while the GitHub repository is Apache-2.0. Inside the CLI, /model switches models. Desktop installers are linked from the freebuff.com home page.

Free Hours and How Usage Is Counted

Freebuff meters every model in hours. One hour on MiMo v2.6 Flash Slow uses one hour of balance. Other models carry a multiplier, so an hour on a 3x model uses three. A session lasts one hour with unlimited messages. Daily hours reset at midnight in your local time zone and do not roll over.

The free plan shows "30 hours refilled daily" for full access. The pricing page converts that to 30 hours of MiMo v2.6 Flash Slow, 15 of MiMo v2.6 Flash Fast, 10 of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, or 2 of Claude Haiku 5.5 per day. The page notes that displayed allowances are for full access and that you should sign in to confirm your own.

Since October 15, 2026, balances read in hours. The README gives the conversion as 1 hour = 5 Freebucks. The terms of service define Freebucks as credits with no cash value; purchased Freebucks expire one year after purchase.

Full Access and Limited Access

Freebuff works in every country, but not every country gets every model. Supported regions get full access. Other regions, and anyone on a VPN, get limited access to five models: GLM 5.3 Flash, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo v2.6 Flash Fast, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4. The free limited-access allowance is 5 hours a day, or 4 hours on a VPN or proxy. The terms also forbid using a VPN or proxy to make traffic appear to come from another country in order to unlock models, limits or pricing.

The regular model picker, as listed in the README:

Model Access
MiMo v2.6 Flash Fast Full and limited (default)
GLM 5.3 Flash Full and limited
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Full and limited
Solar Mini 4 Full and limited
Solar Pro 4 Full and limited
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash Fast Full; paid plans at limited access
GPT-6 Luna Full
MiMo 2.6 Pro Full
Gemini 3.8 Flash Paid plans
Muse Spark 1.3 Paid plans
Gemini 4 Argon US, or paid plans elsewhere; one session a day
GPT-6.1 Sol US, or paid plans elsewhere; one session a day

Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite handles file finding and research in the background and does not appear in the picker. Claude Haiku 5.5 appears in the plan cards on the pricing page. Referrals and bounties add extra sessions on top of the daily allowance.

Plan Price Daily hours Monthly bonus Haiku 5.5 per day "All models"
Free $0 30 None 2 hours Not listed
Starter $8/month 50 60 hours 3 hours Yes
Plus $25/month 80 100 hours 5 hours Yes
Pro $60/month 130 160 hours 8 hours Yes

Daily hours are expressed in MiMo v2.6 Flash Slow equivalents. Yearly billing is advertised as 22% cheaper, and crypto and other local payment methods are offered through the yearly "Pay once" option. Cancelling a monthly plan ends it immediately with no refund; cancelling a yearly plan stops the next renewal. The pricing page also says allowances and model costs may change during the beta and that fair-use limits can pause a session even with hours left.

Freebuff ranked #6 among all apps on OpenRouter's weekly popularity chart for October 10 to 16, 2026, with 2.67T tokens and 19.9M requests. Claude Code was #2 on the same chart.

→ App ranking: AI apps by OpenRouter usage on AI Rank

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Freebuff vs Codebuff

The README says Freebuff is built on Codebuff, "the open multi-agent framework that powers its orchestration, tools, and SDK." Both products come from the same company, and Freebuff's privacy policy covers both. The documented differences are mostly about price and models.

Freebuff Codebuff
Install npm install -g freebuff npm install -g codebuff
Price Free plan, then $8 to $60 a month Subscriptions at $100, $200 or $500 a month, or pay as you go at 1¢ per credit
Funding Text ads Subscription or credits
Main models Catalog of open-weight and hosted models listed above Claude Opus orchestrator in Default, Max and Plan modes; GPT-5.6 Luna in Lite mode
Custom agents and SDK Points to Codebuff docs and @codebuff/sdk Documented in Codebuff docs

Freebuff vs Claude Code

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding tool. Its documentation lists a terminal CLI, IDE extensions for VS Code and JetBrains, a desktop app and a web version. Most surfaces need a Claude subscription or an Anthropic Console account; the terminal CLI, VS Code and JetBrains also accept third-party providers. The recommended install is Anthropic's native installer script, with Homebrew and WinGet as alternatives.

Freebuff does not require a subscription or API key and pays for model usage with ads. It also does not replace Claude Code outright: the README says Freebuff Desktop can run a locally installed Claude Code or Codex agent with your existing provider account, and those connected models sit outside Freebuff's included catalog.

Privacy: Local Files and Ads

Freebuff's privacy policy was last updated on October 18, 2026. Points worth reading before you run the agent on real code:

  • Agents in Freebuff Desktop and the CLI run with your device account's permissions. They can read files, run commands and access environment variables, including outside your project. Anything an agent reads becomes "Prompt and Project Data." The policy recommends running agents in a container or separate account and keeping secrets out of reach.
  • Outside the projects you open, the apps read only the files an agent reads or its commands use, files you open or attach, Freebuff's own files, settings and instructions for your shell, editors, Git and coding agents, and information about your device and installed software.
  • Freebuff may use Prompt and Project Data to personalize ads, including a profile of the languages, frameworks and tools in your projects. To build it, the apps may review configuration and documentation files without a separate prompt.
  • Ad signals can include installed developer tools, typing, pointer and focus activity, text you type before sending, which ads you see and whether you later install an advertised product.
  • Freebuff says it does not give separately uploaded files, project files or connected repository contents to advertising providers.
  • Prompt and Project Data is not used to train general AI models unless a model or feature is labeled "May use data for AI training." Data sent through such a model may be shared, licensed or sold to third parties.
  • Free access may require phone verification. Freebuff may also require ID verification through Didit, which processes a government ID photo and a selfie.

The ads themselves are small text ads. The launch post says they appear between agent turns, not inside generated code or as pop-ups.

FAQ

Is Freebuff really free? The Free plan costs $0 and needs no card. It is limited by daily hours and, outside supported regions, by the limited-access model list.

Which models can I use without paying? With full access, the free plan card prices MiMo v2.6 Flash Slow, MiMo v2.6 Flash Fast, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Claude Haiku 5.5; paid plans add "all models." With limited access, you get GLM 5.3 Flash, DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo v2.6 Flash Fast, Solar Mini 4 and Solar Pro 4 for 5 hours a day, or 4 on a VPN.

What are Freebucks? Freebuff's credit unit. Balances have shown hours since October 15, 2026, at 1 hour = 5 Freebucks.

Can I turn off ads? None of the pricing plans mention removing ads. The privacy policy offers ad opt-outs only where the law requires them and says some ad processing may be necessary to use the free service.

Is Freebuff open source? The GitHub repository is Apache-2.0 and is a TypeScript monorepo built with Bun.

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Sources

Prepared with automated editorial assistance and checked on October 19, 2026 against freebuff.com, the Freebuff pricing page, privacy policy and terms, the GitHub README, npm, Codebuff and Claude Code documentation, and AI Rank data. Freebuff was not installed or run for this article.