Claude Code is now completely free forever 🤯 Google just dropped Gemma 4 on Ollama, which means you can run Claude Code locally with zero API bills and zero subscriptions. Just install Gemma 4, connect it to Claude Code, and suddenly you have free AI agents running directly on... your computer. Google may have just killed AI subscription costs. 🚀show more

another fud post.. have you even tried this setup once !! - First you won’t be able to use Gemma model with Anthropic provided Code code - Gemma 4 model is not even close to Opus 4.6 or GPT 5.4, try once before such claims buddy !!

This is not how any of this works. Claude Code is Anthropic's product. Gemma 4 is Google's. you can't connect one to the other and call it free Claude Code, that's like swapping a Toyota engine into a BMW and still calling it a BMW. What you actually have is Gemma 4 running locally through Ollama which is genuinely cool and genuinely free but the moment you do that you're not using Claude Code anymore, you're using Gemma 4. the agentic behavior, the reasoning, the way Claude Code actually navigates a codebase that comes from Anthropic's models underneath, not the interface. Someone is going to spend time setting this up expecting Claude Code and get something completely different. Be excited about Gemma 4, there are real reasons to be, just don't call it something it isn't.

small correction. running gemma locally doesnt make Claude Code free. local model yes. Claude Code workflow no. people are gonna spend a saturday debugging this combo and still hit the wrong bottleneck

Not quite. Claude Code is hard-coded for Anthropic's API. While you can use open-source alternatives like Aider with Gemma 4 to avoid subscriptions, Claude Code itself remains a paid professional tool. Local LLMs save on tokens, but they require serious local GPU power. No such thing as a free lunch in AI.

Terrible post, these are not the same thing at all

This is wrong on almost every level. Claude Code is Anthropic's product. Gemma 4 is Google's model. You cannot "connect" Gemma 4 to Claude Code and get Claude Code for free. That's like saying "Ford is now free because Toyota released a new engine." They're different products from different companies. Claude Code runs on Claude's API. It requires Anthropic's models to function. You can't swap in a different model and call it Claude Code. The tool-routing, the agentic capabilities, the memory system, the prompt caching, the entire architecture is built around Claude's specific API and model behavior. What you can do with Gemma 4 on Ollama is run a local open-source model on your own hardware for free. That's real and that's useful. But what you get is a local LLM in a terminal. You don't get Claude Code's agentic framework, its tool integrations, its file system awareness, its iterative debugging loop, or any of the infrastructure that makes Claude Code an actual product instead of a raw model. "Google may have just killed AI subscription costs" is the kind of headline designed for engagement, not accuracy. Running local models has been possible for over two years. Ollama has supported dozens of open-source models since 2023. Gemma 4 is a new addition to that list, not a paradigm shift. And local models require meaningful hardware to run well. The compute cost didn't disappear. It moved from a subscription to your electricity bill and GPU. Claude Code is not free. Gemma 4 is not Claude. Running a local model is not the same as running Claude Code.

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I tried gemma 4 on my pc that has 4gb gpu and it didn't worked(memory filled). I thought maybe the system is old and then I tried that on Google's T4 with 15 GB of VRAM gpu and again it didn't worked the reason is you need 62.4 gb of ram in gpu or local just to load this model.

Gemma is just a hype, I tried it it's not that great.

Influencers like this are just a Joke ! is Gemma even closer Opus 4.6 or Sonnet, definitely not real developers or architect knows that this is just a poor model , goal is not to save tokens but do something extra ordinary with Gemma you can just chose Free!!

you obviously have no fucking clue what you are talking about

No, this is not even remotely true. 1. local models are terrible for most *actual* coding use cases 2. Claude Code doesn't work well with non Anthropic APIs, especially in more complex planning tasks Did you actually try it? Or are you just pure clickbait?

Local AI agents are getting really interesting now, I’ve been doing most of my coding through blackboxai recently.

You do need a beast of a machine to run this though. Is it programming effectively?

local models are great for privacy but trading dev bandwidth for a zero api bill is a mid-tier move. i would rather pay for claude if it saves me 10 minutes of debugging a subtle bug the small model missed.

These AI hype posts are always so funny to me. As if Gemma 4 is comparable to any Claude model out today 🤣 it's gonna take years before these local models are as capable as the ones OpenAi and Anthropic offer.

That's not Claude Code, that's Ollama in a trenchcoat. My GPU screams.

This is Gemma running through Claude Code as a wrapper. That's not Claude. Free local model ≠ free Claude. Big difference for anyone expecting Sonnet-level output from this setup.

Stop showin Claude cli with models other than Opus it mislead everybody ... Nobody understand and you break confidence. Explain the distillation of Opus on qwen and show the limitation and what web all need to build that still miss Truth is the authority stop bullshiz

It didn’t do so well when I tried it. It would work on a task and just stop with no output. I tried 26B and 31B.

Cheap agents are great. But cost is not the bottleneck for most people anymore. The bottleneck is still operating logic: what gets delegated, what gets reviewed, and what the system is actually responsible for.

free as in “no API bill,” sure. but you’re paying in VRAM, latency, and weaker code reasoning vs Sonnet/Opus—still great for tight, local workflows.

Retards making claims without actually testing it … grifter

Claude Code is just the CLI wrapper. The actual brain is the model. Equating a local Gemma model to a frontier model like Claude 3.5 is like putting a Ferrari steering wheel on a golf cart and claiming you got a free supercar. The reasoning isn't even in the same league.🥵🥵🥵

Someone tell him that’s not how it works 🤦‍♂️

“Claude Code is now completely free forever” — just swap in Google’s Gemma 4 on Ollama and run it locally. Except it isn’t Claude anymore. It’s a different model wearing the interface like a borrowed suit. The hype is real. The substitution is not. Local-first intelligence gets the point: own the actual model, own the stack, own the outcomes. No rented brains, no weekend debugging someone else’s marketing. Because the real free lunch is the one you cook yourself — on hardware you control. Responsive freedom lifestyle ♾️ sovereignty.

gemma 4 + claude code + ollama = zero api bills and full local ai agents is actually insane ngl, google just quietly changed the game

You’re swapping in Gemma 4 (a solid open model) as the backend. The interface and agentic features (file editing, shell tools, project scanning) come from Claude Code, but the reasoning and coding quality depend on Gemma 4. Gemma 4 models (26B/31B) need significant RAM/VRAM (16–24+ GB recommended for smooth agent use).

I installed this one thing you guys should need to know is that this isn’t what you’re used to using if you’re used to using web stuff or apps on your phone. There is no ongoing conversation once you exit the chat it seems to go away. It doesn’t have real time web access so it has a data cut off. It’s great that it exists but I’ve seen three posts like this in the last hour that make this sound like it’s “better” than what you’re paying $20 a month for. And for many of you, that won’t necessarily be true.

I get the feeling this is for clicks. Ive run it on Gemm4 and the experience is not even close bc of the loss of reasoning. Its literally physics.

Sorry, This is misleading hype. Claude Code CLI ≠ Claude Sonnet. Gemma 4 isn't replacing Sonnet 4.6, not even close. I run Gemma locally. It is not any better than Qwen 3.5 27B. It's MiniMax 2.5 tier. Free forever? Only if "mediocre forever" counts.

nope it did not, its like saying a cheap snack replacing my meal

Ok tell me where the claude part is free? stop this shit man

Making API calls to Claude isn’t free 🤦‍♂️