I know you might have explored different kinds of AI coding tools to develop a website maybe for yourself because you couldn’t afford to hire a professional or use them as your coding assistant. Whether you’re a beginner looking for a free AI coding assistant for web developers or someone who just wants to build a website with AI for free, one common thing about each and every one of them is that you send a prompt to the AI agent to build something for you in clear English, and they’ll do it well but differently.
Currently now, I bet you already know about Replit if not then Lovable, others you might be aware of are Antigravity, Codex, Base44, Gemini CLI etc. Why? You always hit what we call rate limit! Funny enough you’re not aware the first time trying your first AI tool. But in the middle of a project, you got a message hitting a rate limit.
Simply put, a rate limit is like a limited resources allocated to be used and most of these AI coding tools gives it per day and some per week or per month. The moment you hit a limit, you either wait till the next day, or the following week, or month before you can continue with your project.
As a beginner who’s testing the AI tool that’s best for you completely free cannot afford a $20/month subscription on any AI tool — what you really need is an AI coding tool with no subscription holding you back. So, the moment you hit limit, you’ll definitely try another AI tool.
AI Coding Assistants I Tried First
After many years of coding experience, and now with the emergence of AI tools, you’ll definitely need one to speed up your projects. I tried a few and got good results.
Lovable – This was my first AI tool I tried out developing a shopping website. I got around 10 free credits at first then 5 credits/day and 30 credits/month. Mind you, I exhaust them quickly. For the basic subscription, that starts around $25.
Replit – I move from Lovable to Replit and my experience was even more broaden with the way projects are handled differently. I had a good experience using Replit but that’s for the backend, for the frontend i.e the UI I’ll give that too Lovable.
After trying out Replit for a few days, I hit limit even before getting the job done and I couldn’t afford to buy any of their subscription plan. I made a research on YouTube and found out that’s the most common thing among these AI tools “rate limit” and going deeper I finally found that one tool.
Meet OpenCode – The Free AI Coding Assistant
OpenCode is an open-source AI coding agent that helps you to write code in your terminal, desktop, or IDE — and it’s completely free. You’ve access to many AI models like GPT, Claude, Gemini Pro etc., making it the best free AI for beginners in web development who want real flexibility.
So why OpenCode and why is it different?
I tried OpenCode just like previous AI tools I tested, and also got the result I wanted. I used it to build a website project, debug code issues, and fix errors — all for free. The very first thing I noticed after a while is that my limit starts all over without me noticing it, I already worked with it for more than 4 hours YES! You wouldn’t notice this too at first and that got me more attracted to it.
The difference compare to other AI tools are just few, you can choose to integrate any other AI model and use them, but for its free model you will hit no limit. OpenCode has over 180K Guthub stars, is terminal based, model agnostic, and open source.
As a beginner web developer, this is the best free AI coding assistant you’ll ever have to speed up your projects with $0 setup. Just like other AI tools, it has the Plan mode and the Build mode, and you can switch agents based on your choice.
This post is not in any way affiliated to OpenCode, this is just me giving you the solution to your problem and starting from today you’ll start doing things the way you want after learning how to use OpenCode.
How OpenCode Works Step-By-Step
Enough of the introduction, and let’s dive into how you can start using OpenCode step-by-step:
1. Open your Visual Studio Code (VSCode) and click on the Extension Icon
2. Click inside the search bar and type “opencode”
3. Click on the exact OpenCode Extension
4. Click the Install button and click the “Trust Publisher and Install” button on the popup dialogue to install OpenCode Extension.
5. After successful installation it should look like the image below, then you create a new folder for your website project and open it inside the VSCode.
6. For the sake of this introductory guide, I’ll be designing a simple portfolio called “Openfolio”
7. Open your Terminal and type “opencode auth login” and hit the Enter key.
8. A list will be displayed, OpenCode Zen (recommended) is already selected so hit the Enter key again.
9. You’ll be ask to create an api key at https://opencode.ai/auth, click on the link and it opens in your browser. Register an account via Google, on the landing page you’ll see your api key, copy it and go back to the Terminal to paste it there. Hit the Enter key and you’re done! Congrats on setting up your OpenCode.
10. In your root folder inside the terminal, run npm install -g opencode-ai to reinstall OpenCode again and clear the terminal after its successful.
11. Type opencode and hit the Enter key, you’ll see the OpenCode fully loaded like this inside your terminal. So just like you’ve already work with previous AI tools, you can start working with it.
12. For me I use the Mimo V2.5 Free model, you can activate it by typing: /models and hit the Enter key. Go through the Models stated Free and pick the one you would work with.
13. This is not a detailed prompt but you can truly go ahead and test it out with your project. You hit the Enter key after typing your prompt and wait while it builds everything for you.
14. Once it’s done, it stops working and your website is ready for preview.
15. This is a preview of the Featured Project section, due to the fact that the prompt wasn’t detailed I would get this as the result.
The more your prompt is detailed, the better the result. To switch between Plan mode and Build mode, just hit the Tab key. Use it to debug your existing project and fix errors/issues, check security audit for your website and fix it. There are a lot more than that you can do with OpenCode, and that’s all for the introductory guide to OpenCode AI tool, the best free AI coding assistance to work with without hitting rate limits.
Final Thoughts
My final thoughts? Starting out as a beginner web developer is always exciting, but it can also be frustrating when the tools you work with keep stopping you mid-project, most especially when things get interesting. That’s the reality with most AI coding assistants out there. You only just get enough credits/rate limit to get started and test out their AI tool, and then hit you with a rate limit right when things get interesting like I mentioned earlier.
OpenCode changes the whole story and it’s a genuinely free AI coding assistant for web developers like you that lets you build, debug, and ship projects without working with a countdown timer. No subscription, no hidden limits, no pressure to upgrade. Just you, your project, and an open source AI coding agent that keeps working for you on your project as long as you need it to.
I’ve tested it myself for a long time now and I’ve built a real several projects with it from scratch inside VSCode. This is not a theory, but a live proof to let you know a complete free coding agent is available for you. For other free AI tools aside web development, you can check here.
So, if you’ve been jumping between many AI tools trying to find the one that works without paying, stop now and start working with OpenCode. Give it a try, set it up exactly as I showed you step-by-step, and build something with it.
