What each one says about the other
These sentences were written about each tool on its own, before this page existed, and each names the other tool by name. They are quoted, not composed.
Claude Code on Goose · not for
A developer who must run a local or self-hosted model should choose goose or Crush; both accept an Ollama endpoint.
“Local model runner supporting Qwen, Llama, DeepSeek, and other open-source models.”
Claude Code and Goose, fact by fact
| Fact | Claude Code | Goose |
|---|---|---|
| StarsClaude Code has 94,785 more stars (2.7×). | 149,849Verified 8 Oct 2026 | 55,064Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Newest commitBoth committed on the same day. | 8 Oct 20260 days old when we read itVerified 8 Oct 2026 | 7 Oct 20260 days old when we read itVerified 8 Oct 2026 |
| ContributorsGoose has 396 more contributors (7.9×). | 57Verified 8 Oct 2026 | 453Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| License | not tracked for Claude Code | Apache-2.0Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| Latest stable releaseBoth released on the same day. | v2.1.294published 8 Oct 2026Verified 8 Oct 2026 | v1.53.0published 2 Oct 2026Verified 8 Oct 2026 |
| npm downloads | 14,786,283 a week@anthropic-ai/claude-codeVerified 8 Oct 2026 | not tracked for Goose |
| Repository | anthropics/claude-codeTypeScriptVerified 8 Oct 2026 | aaif-goose/gooseRustVerified 8 Oct 2026 |
What we know about Claude Code
Claude Code runs only Anthropic models: every alias — default, best, fable, sonnet, opus, haiku and opusplan — resolves to a Claude model, and changing the base URL moves where the request goes without changing which model answers it.
“ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL changes where requests are sent, not which model answers them.”
Plan a change with Opus and execute it with Sonnet inside one session, by setting the model to `opusplan`.
“Special mode that uses opus during plan mode, then switches to sonnet for execution”
Run the agent on infrastructure your employer already approved: the model setting accepts an Amazon Bedrock inference profile ARN, a Microsoft Foundry deployment name, or a Google Cloud Agent Platform version name.
“Amazon Bedrock: an inference profile ARN”
Work one long task without losing history: `sonnet[1m]` gives a 1 million token context window, and auto-compaction runs below it.
“Uses Sonnet with a 1 million token context window for long sessions”
You cannot audit, fork or patch the agent: the repository publishes the changelog, plugins and examples, not the CLI source, under an all-rights-reserved licence. GitHub Copilot CLI is the only other tool in this set that does the same.
“© Anthropic PBC. All rights reserved. Use is subject to Anthropic's [Commercial Terms of Service](https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms).”
Subscribers report the plan limit arriving far earlier than the plan implies: the repository's most-commented open issue carries 1,487 comments and 724 reactions and has stayed open since 2026-01-03.
“[BUG] Instantly hitting usage limits with Max subscription”
On API-key billing the cost is per token, and Anthropic's own enterprise figure is $150-250 per developer per month.
“Across enterprise deployments, the average cost is around $13 per developer per active day and $150-250 per developer per month, with costs remaining below $30 per active day for 90% of users.”
A developer who must run a local or self-hosted model should choose goose or Crush; both accept an Ollama endpoint.
“Local model runner supporting Qwen, Llama, DeepSeek, and other open-source models.”
What Claude Code costs
Claude Pro costs $17 per month on the annual plan, $200 billed up front, or $20 per month billed monthly; Max starts at $100 per month.
“Per month with annual subscription discount ($200 billed up front). $20 if billed monthly.”
Pro and Max subscribers do not pay per token for Claude Code; the usage sits inside the subscription.
“Claude Max and Pro subscribers have usage included in their subscription, so the session cost figure isn’t relevant for billing purposes.”
What we know about Goose
goose is the only agent in this set governed by a foundation rather than a vendor, and it can borrow an existing Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini subscription over the Agent Client Protocol instead of an API key.
“goose is part of the [Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF)](https://aaif.io/) at the Linux Foundation.”
Automate work that is not coding — research, writing, data analysis — on the same machine and the same agent, through the desktop app, the CLI or the API.
“goose is a general-purpose AI agent that runs on your machine. Not just for code — use it for research, writing, automation, data analysis, or anything you need to get done.”
Wire the agent into tools you already run: goose connects to 70+ extensions over the Model Context Protocol.
“Connect to 70+ extensions via the [Model Context Protocol](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) open standard.”
Ship one configuration to a whole team: a custom distribution bundles the providers, extensions and branding before anybody installs it.
“[Custom Distributions](https://github.com/aaif-goose/goose/blob/main/CUSTOM_DISTROS.md) — build your own goose distro with preconfigured providers, extensions, and branding”
Model choice is not free: goose leans on tool calling, so a weak or local model degrades it, and the vendor names Claude 4 as the model it works best with.
“goose relies heavily on tool calling capabilities and currently works best with Claude 4 models.”
Two OpenAI reasoning models do not run at all, because they cannot call tools.
“o1-mini and o1-preview are not supported because goose uses tool calling.”
Unattended scheduling is broken in 1.45.0: headless runs die at the first tool call and a recipe's own goose_mode is ignored.
“Scheduler unusable for unattended recipes on 1.45.0: headless runs die at first tool call, recipe-level goose_mode is silently ignored, an interrupted run-now permanently wedges the job, and spawned sessions get no schedule_id”
A developer who wants the widest model catalogue in a terminal should pick OpenCode, which reaches 75+ providers from one config file.
“OpenCode uses the AI SDK and Models.dev to support 75+ LLM providers and it supports running local models.”
What Goose costs
goose charges nothing for itself; you pay whichever provider you configure, and it accepts a ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription in place of an API key.
“Access GPT-5 Codex models optimized for code generation and understanding. Requires a ChatGPT Plus/Pro subscription.”
Questions people ask
- Are Claude Code and Goose still maintained?
- Claude Code committed to anthropics/claude-code (main) on 8 Oct 2026. Goose committed to aaif-goose/goose (main) on 7 Oct 2026. Both readings come from the default branch of each repository, on the date shown beside them.
- What do Claude Code and Goose cost?
- Claude Code: Claude Pro costs $17 per month on the annual plan, $200 billed up front, or $20 per month billed monthly; Max starts at $100 per month. Pro and Max subscribers do not pay per token for Claude Code; the usage sits inside the subscription. Goose: goose charges nothing for itself; you pay whichever provider you configure, and it accepts a ChatGPT Plus or Pro subscription in place of an API key. Every figure here is quoted from the vendor's own page and linked beside the claim.
- Is Claude Code or Goose open source?
- We have not read a licence for Claude Code. Goose's repository aaif-goose/goose reports the Apache-2.0 licence. We read the licence GitHub reports for the repository, which is not the same question as whether the hosted product is free.
How we check this page
- Machine facts. Stars, contributors, the newest commit on the default branch, the licence GitHub reports and the latest stable release come from the GitHub API, and download counts from npm, PyPI, Homebrew and the VS Code Marketplace. Each value carries the day it was last confirmed, never the day this page was built. The line under each label is arithmetic on those two values.
- Judgments. Every claim about what a tool suits, what it is bad at and what it costs is quoted from a page we read, and that page is linked beside the claim. Where there is no link, we wrote no claim.
- Index status. Both Claude Code and Goose carry claims we read, quoted and linked. So this page is offered to search engines.
Related comparisons
Pairs we can answer for come first.
