Hacker News

Claude Code Alternatives?

Hacker News - Fri, 04/18/2025 - 6:10pm

For anyone that has use Claude Code, what is a powerful enough alternative? I've been getting some amazing results with it, but the cost quickly adds up. I'd like to test something like the Gemini 2.5 Flash API which is significantly cheaper.

Does Aider or RooCode offer comparative performance?

I'm not looking for something that's simply cheaper. I want to know if it's possible to get the same level of quality at a cheaper price. I know Claude Code is tightly integrated with its own model which is part of the reason it performs so well.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43732274

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Categories: Hacker News

Ask HN: Best books you've read on becoming a manager (of Sales and Eng Roles)

Hacker News - Fri, 04/18/2025 - 6:07pm

Curious on the community take. Thanks so much :)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43732252

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

SmallJS Release 1.6

Hacker News - Fri, 04/18/2025 - 5:54pm

Article URL: https://small-js.org/News/News.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43732184

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

Swarm Debugging with MCP

Hacker News - Fri, 04/18/2025 - 5:52pm
Categories: Hacker News

Show HN: Better Than 4 But Not 5 – An LLM model ordering challenge

Hacker News - Fri, 04/18/2025 - 5:27pm

This simple game challenges you drag-and-drop a set of LLM models into the correct order (release date, input cost at launch, LM Arena score) using just their name.

It's no secret that LLM model names are a bit of a mess, but when OpenAI decided to backtrack from 4.5 to 4.1, well, I just couldn't let it go.

This was my first attempt at vibe coding something with VSCode Copilot Agent (w/ Claude 3.7 Sonnet). The agent got me like 95% functionality, but the moment I needed to crack open the code myself I couldn't handle the mess and had to clean it up. I am bad at letting go control enough for vibe coding. If anyone else has had that problem and gotten over it, I would love some helpful tips.

I collected the data primarily by digging through Simon Willison's blog archives and snapshotting LMArena's leaderboard. If you spot any inaccuracies in the model data, I'd appreciate corrections with sources!

Nothing fancy in the tech here, just a vanilla HTML/CSS/JS site hosted on GitHub Pages. GitHub link (MIT License): https://github.com/wspittman/BetterThan4ButNot5

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43732009

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Categories: Hacker News

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