Qwen Code

★★★★☆4.3 / 5 editorial Free Free and open source (Apache 2.0); you bring your own model access — a Qwen subscription, another provider's API key, or a local model. Alibaba Cloud Coding Plan Pro is $50/month.

Open-source AI coding agent for your terminal, editor, and desktop.

✓ Editor-researched listing — details reviewed by Grab AI Tool editors; pricing re-checked regularly.

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#coding agent#cli#open source#terminal#ai developer tools#mcp

What is Qwen Code?

Qwen Code is Alibaba's open-source AI coding agent that lives in your terminal: open it in a project, describe what you want, and it reads files, edits code, and runs commands and tests, asking for approval as it goes. The 1.0 Preview, released on November 11, 2026, folds in the agent-harness capabilities of Qoder and ships as a full agent runtime — terminal, desktop app, web UI, IDE plugins for VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains, plus chat integrations and SDKs.

Its draw is that it is not tied to one vendor. It speaks the OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Qwen APIs, so you can point it at a Qwen model, another provider, or a local model through Ollama or vLLM, and switch at runtime. Subagents and agent teams, plan mode, MCP servers, hooks, auto-memory, a sandbox, and git worktrees come built in, and on SWE-bench Verified it scores 76.4–77.8% with the Qwen 3.7 Max model. The code is Apache 2.0, with nearly 30,000 GitHub stars.

Who Qwen Code Is Best For

Best for: Qwen Code suits developers and engineering teams especially well: Free and open source, with no vendor lock-in on models; strong benchmark results: 76.4–77.8% on SWE-bench Verified. It is completely free, so there is no budget decision to make.

Not ideal for: Less suited to users who will hit its limits head-on: the free Qwen OAuth tier ended in April 2026, so you bring and pay for your own model access; a terminal-first tool — developers who want a polished GUI will prefer the desktop app or an IDE plugin.

Key Features

Agentic coding in the terminal: reads, edits, and tests your code
Subagents, agent teams, plan mode, MCP, hooks, and auto-memory
Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and Qwen APIs or local models
Terminal, desktop app, web UI, and VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains plugins
Sandbox, git worktrees, and an Agent Arena that runs two models head to head

Pros

Free and open source, with no vendor lock-in on models
Strong benchmark results: 76.4–77.8% on SWE-bench Verified
Terminal, desktop, web, editor, and chat — pick the surface you like

Cons

The free Qwen OAuth tier ended in April 2026, so you bring and pay for your own model access
A terminal-first tool — developers who want a polished GUI will prefer the desktop app or an IDE plugin
The 1.0 Preview is still a preview, so expect rough edges as it stabilizes

Pricing

Model: Free
Free and open source (Apache 2.0); you bring your own model access — a Qwen subscription, another provider's API key, or a local model. Alibaba Cloud Coding Plan Pro is $50/month.

Adding Up Your AI Bill?

If you pay for Qwen Code alongside other AI subscriptions, the monthly total adds up quietly. Tick every tool you pay for in our free AI Tool Cost Calculator to see your real monthly and yearly bill — and spot overlaps you can cut. Still choosing? Start with our guide on how to choose the right AI tool.