There certainly is some relaxing value in working on projects to vibe code them; but not enough to pay some random corporation. Get yourself a Mac Studio or AMD395+ and pi or opencode, and a few plugins and they're pretty capable. Since they're not speed demons but reliable compaions who are always there, you don't ever feel compelled to constantly attend to whatever they're doing.

And when you inevitably get bored with it, well, you've not done much anyway. You can always get back up to speed in a month and have the LLM remind you of what it was doing.

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kowbell 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> And when you inevitably get bored with it, well, you've not done much anyway.

I'm very interested in Local LLMs but the cheapest Mac Studio right now is more expensive than 8 years of a Claude Code Pro subscription, and incomparably slower/less capable. If I get bored with it, I will have a piece of unused hardware and a couple grand less in my bank account.

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binary0010 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have opencode with qwen 3.6 on my local machine. Just get the setup right and it's surprisingly fun to work with.

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kowbell 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I had a ton of fun setting up and trying it out locally (also opencode and one of the qwens.) I still don't have hardware powerful enough to feel like it's meaningfully productive, but all the learning I had to do (and all the bonus things I got curious about as the curtain peeled back) got my nerd brain all worked up, and finally seeing it work was exciting in that cool-new-experience way you don't often get to enjoy :)

	▲	binary0010 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah this is exactly how I felt! Never really felt excited about llms or agentic workflows before. Getting everything setup 100% local and tweaking it to exactly what I want and having it actually working quite well has been a really cool experience.

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politelemon 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you already have a gaming pc, then it's worth exploring as the cost of boredom is negligible.

	▲	kowbell 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I did tinker a lil with mine! RTX3080 with 10GB VRAM, 5600x with 64GB DDR4 - not very good but it was very fun and exciting to tinker with :) My partner on the otherhand has an M3 Max 64GB which I've had way more success with. Setting up opencode and doing a tiny spec-driven Rust project and watching it kiiinda work was extraordinarily exciting!

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cyanydeez 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

AMD 395+ w/128gb is all you need. the idea that mac studio is the default is a nerdfest.

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AntiUSAbah 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I find $200/month for the pro/max subscriptions cost prohibivitve, but as a software enginere $20/month is just lunch.

And with a Claude or GPT $20 Subscription, i can do other fun things too like using it for real things (emails) or image generation.

A Mac Studio or AMD395 is neither of it. And its not just a basic setup either. I need to buy it, configure it, put it somewhere. That alone is a grand and more + a whole weekend.

	▲	cyanydeez 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You need to factor in the constant value proposition that cloud providers will absolutely drive you to in the next 2 years; even if you're not an AI hater, you should listen to ed zitron's description of the value props these clouds require to make a profit for their VC backers. This means oyu may be opinionated today on something you will not have tomorrow, 6 months, a year. All that work flow you salivate over can be ripped away. If you're fine with that, and you've "escaped the permanent underclass" congrats, this opinion is not for you.

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IanCal 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Buying hardware is paying a "random corporation". Make the massive hardware purchase after finding out if you have enough demand to buy rather than rent,

	▲	cyanydeez 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My hardware won't be nerfed because a cloud business requires sacrifices.

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binary0010 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah. I setup opencode + qwen 3.6 last weekend.

It's actually really cool to have it work on some internal tooling and stuff while I work on my primary projects.

I'm surprised how easy it is to setup and that it can handle modestly complex planning and development flows.

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redsocksfan45 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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