The deciding difference is operational: OpenCode can run on infrastructure you control, Claude Agent SDK cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered.
The Claude Code loop as a library, for agents that are not about code.
Same harness as Claude Code, but you own the entrypoint and the tool surface.
Open-source terminal coding agent, provider-agnostic.
| Claude Agent SDK | OpenCode | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary | Open source |
| Pricing | usage based | open source |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Languages | TypeScript, Python | Any language |
| Install | npm install @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk | npm install -g opencode-ai |
| Keys required | ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | None |
The deciding difference is operational: OpenCode can run on infrastructure you control, Claude Agent SDK cannot. If that constraint is real for you, it settles the choice before anything else is considered. Claude Agent SDK: The Claude Code loop as a library, for agents that are not about code. OpenCode: Open-source terminal coding agent, provider-agnostic.
Claude Agent SDK is a hosted service only. OpenCode can run on your own infrastructure.
Claude Agent SDK is proprietary (usage based). OpenCode is open source (open source).
Every page here answers to Accept: text/markdown and returns the same content at roughly a tenth the tokens. No separate site, no toggle — same URL.
curl -s -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://newagent.build/compare/claude-agent-sdk-vs-opencode