goose

Goose is Block's (Square's) open-source AI coding agent — not an autocomplete tool like Copilot, but a full autonomous agent that can plan, build, test, and debug entire features. Think Claude Code but model-agnostic: use Claude for complex work, GPT-4o for routine tasks, or a local Ollama model for private code, all in the same session.

If you want AI coding without vendor lock-in or monthly subscriptions, Goose is compelling. Claude Code costs $200/month and locks you to Anthropic. Cursor is $20-200/month with its own model preferences. Goose is free (Apache 2.0) — you just pay for API calls. Block reports 60% of their workforce uses it weekly.

The catch: Goose is still young and rough around the edges compared to Claude Code's polish. The extension ecosystem is thin. And "model-agnostic" means you're responsible for picking the right model for each task — there's no single provider optimizing the experience for you. The ceiling is high, but so is the setup cost.