Do people really use claude code or any other agent with a paid api key? Why? Why wouldn't you just get Claude Max?

I wouldn't use Claude API Key pricing, but I also wouldn't get a Claude Max sub unless it was the only AI tool I used.

Antigravity / Google AI Pro is much better value, been using it as my primary IDE assistant for a couple months and have yet to hit a quota limit on my $16/mo sub (annual pricing) which also includes a tonne of other AI perks inc. Nano Banana, TTS, NotebookLM, storage, etc.

No need to use Anthropic's premium models for tool calling when Gemini/MiniMax are better value models that still perform well.

I still have a Claude Pro plan, but I use it much less than Antigravity and thanks to Anthropic axing their sub usage, I no longer use it outside of CC.

	▲	esperent an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Counterpoint: on the $20 monthly account I would hit my 5 hour limits within an hour on antigravity. I end up spending half my time managing my context and keeping conversations short.

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tgtweak 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Rate limits mostly - plus claude code is a relatively recent thing but sonnet api has been around for a while with 3rd party apps (like cline). In those scenarios, it was only api.