#AI coding tools

A systematic comparison reveals that Claude Code uses approximately 33,000 tokens before processing the user's prompt, while OpenCode uses only about 7,000 tokens — a roughly 4.7x difference in overhead. The study logged all requests between the tools and Anthropic's endpoint to capture token usage data. This token inefficiency directly impacts developers' costs when using Claude Code, as users pay per token. The findings also raise broader questions about business incentives and design choices in AI coding tools, especially as agentic coding becomes more popular. The overhead is attributed to Claude Code's cache strategy and harness token usage, including a large system prompt and aggressive tool calling. Community reports also indicate that sub-agents launched by Claude Code can burn through budgets rapidly, even before completing a task.