🤯 FREE UNLIMITED Claude Code (No NVIDIA NIM, No Ollama!) [NEW Alternative]

So guys, you've probably seen many videos on YouTube about this topic, where you'd be told you can either use Ollama to run local models, or use cloud APIs through NVIDIA NIM. But I won't cover these two methods today. And guys, you've landed on the right video. You're here because on my channel, I keep showing you how to get AI coding done for free.

The methods for getting free AI coding keep changing. So as soon as I find a new method, I make a new video and post it on my channel, so that you can also use it for free as long as that offer is available. You'll be able to build projects for free. So guys, subscribe to our channel for all these

updates. So guys, I posted a video about Nvidia NIM before, and it got a lot of positive response. But the problem is it doesn't support many countries. A lot of people can't get their Nvidia account verified, and many have trouble with the API — they keep getting errors. And I also found Nvidia's API to be quite slow.

Nvidia NIM now has very heavy traffic. And those peak hours start at 6:00 PM in India. So before 6:00 PM, it works fine if you get the coding done. But after that, it becomes very difficult. It slows down considerably. And as for Ollama, you know the situation. Not many people have machines that powerful. Let me give you my own example — my Mac.

I bought it for around 4 lakh rupees. It has 64GB of RAM and the latest M5 Pro chipset — a very powerful Mac. And even when I was using Ollama with local models, the fast models lacked intelligence. And the intelligent models were so slow that I didn't want to use them for coding.

Local models still need more time to become truly viable. So guys, what should we do? Both these methods aren't really working well for most people. So guys, let me tell you — I recently discovered that in OpenCode Zen, we can use Minimax M2.5 completely for free. It's available globally. There are no fixed limits — you can use it extensively.

Limits apply automatically based on traffic. And OpenCode handles this automatically. You can see that Minimax M2.5 is free, with some soft limits. For now. They haven't given an exact timeframe for when it will be removed — 1 month, 2 months, 10 months, 1 year — we don't know. But as long as it's free, we can keep using it.

Now you might think this only works in OpenCode. But yes guys, I have it running in OpenCode, and I'm also running it inside Claude Code. And many people told me they don't like the CLI and prefer using VS Code. They want to do coding in VS Code or use some kind of UI. So guys, I'm also running this model in VS Code

via the Claude Code extension. Let me show you a live demo. Yes. If you don't believe me, I'm pressing Enter right now. I already asked it which model it is, and it told me it's Minimax M2.5 — the free model. And you can see how quickly it responded. So it's fast, and there are no API errors either.

You don't even need to verify your phone number. Just create an account and you're done. And guys, in the comments of my videos, a lot of people ask whether they can use Anthropic's models like Claude. But guys, those are paid models, and they're paid for a reason. And many people say that open source models are not on par with Claude Opus or Claude Sonnet.

And that they're useless for coding. So guys, let me tell you — you can Google it yourself. Search for Minimax M2.5 compared to Claude Opus 4.6. But let me also show you the benchmarks. You can see that Minimax M2.5 is an Opus-level model. So it's certainly comparable to Sonnet. In my Claude Code Pro plan, I use almost exclusively Sonnet.

Opus runs out after just four messages. So these open source models are comparable to Sonnet. You can work on large projects with them without any problems. And I use them myself. So guys, today I'm going to show you both processes — the Mac process and the Windows process. You can skip ahead using the

timestamps and chapters listed in the description below this video. You'll also find all the chapters in YouTube's chapter menu. You can skip directly by clicking on them. So guys, to get OpenCode set up, visit the official website. And yes guys, all the links and information in this video are available in the description below.

You can copy and paste from there. So guys, click on Zen here. After clicking, click on Login and sign in to your account. After logging in, you don't need to enable billing here. Because it will charge you. We only want to use the free models. No need to use any paid versions. Next, go to the API Keys section.

Click on Create an API Key. Name it — for example, I'll name it "Claude Code" — and click Create. The API key will then be displayed. Copy the key. And yes guys, after this video, I'll delete it so no one can misuse these keys. So guys, this key will be useful later in the process. Copy it and keep it somewhere safe. So guys,

even if you just want to run Claude Code in VS Code, you still need to set up the Claude Code CLI first. Only then can Claude Code run inside VS Code. So first, I'll show you how to install it on Mac and Linux. Go to your browser and visit the Claude Code official website — you'll find a command there. Just copy it and

go to your terminal, paste it in, and press Enter. Claude Code will be installed. And guys, I'm using CMUX here — it's a terminal app for Mac. You can also use the default Mac Terminal. To verify the installation, I'll type 'claude --help' here. You can see the help menu appears — that means

Claude Code is installed. Now we'll install OpenCode. For that, go to the official OpenCode website. Here, you'll also find a command. Copy it and paste it into your terminal. So guys, first I'll show you how to run it in OpenCode, since that's simpler. Then I'll show you Claude Code. Once you've installed OpenCode, restart your Terminal app.

Then type 'opencode' and press Enter. The OpenCode interface will open. Then type a forward slash, type "connect" and press Enter. Then choose OpenCode Zen. Press Enter and enter your API key. To do this, go back to your browser, click on Zen, and log in. Sign in, then go to API Keys and copy the API key we created earlier.

Paste it into your terminal and press Enter. After this, you'll see all the free models available in OpenCode Zen. Click on Minimax M2.5 Free and press Enter. Then you can see — I give it a prompt: 'which model are you?' And see how fast it is. It started thinking and gave the answer right away.

And you can see we're using the Minimax M2.5 Free model here. To exit, press Control+C. Now I'll show you how to set it up in Claude Code. To set up Claude Code, you need to type this command here. And yes guys, you must have VS Code installed. Then type the tilde (~) sign, then a forward slash, then .claude

and press Enter. This will open your .claude folder. Then create a settings.json file inside this .claude folder. And guys, you'll find the code for this in the description. Paste it into settings.json. And guys, if you already have a settings.json file, you just need to copy and paste the 'env' section. You can paste the whole block, but make sure your existing Claude Code

settings aren't overwritten. If you already have something written here, don't paste over it — just add this part after the existing code. Paste it within the curly braces and save the file. Then you'll need to add the API key. Let's go back to our browser and copy the API key. Paste it here. Then go to your terminal.

Once I clear the terminal, I'll type 'claude' and press Enter. It will ask whether I want dark mode or light mode, so I'll select dark. And it will say a custom API configuration was found in your settings. Do you want to use it? We'll say yes. Press Enter. Then Enter again. And guys,

our Claude Code is now running. Finally, type /model. Press Enter and you can see the free Minimax M2.5 model is listed here. Select it and press Enter. I'll clear the screen. And now I'll ask it which model it is. And see how quickly it responds. And even if I just type 'hey' to show you,

you can see the speed at which it's replying. And guys, if you don't know how to use Claude Code, visit my channel and watch my video where I've explained in 30 minutes how to learn Claude Code completely from A to Z. How to use it and all the tips and tricks. I've set up Claude Code. Now for those who don't like the CLI, I'm going to show in VS

Code how to set this up. To set it up in VS Code, you first need to complete the CLI setup we just did. After doing this, press Ctrl+C to exit. Next, open your VS Code app. Once open, you'll see the sidebar. Go to the Extensions tab. Then search for 'Claude'. You'll find an extension

called Claude Code for VS Code — this is the official Anthropic extension. You'll see a verified tick mark. Install it. After installing, close the extensions panel. You can double-click anywhere to open a file. For example, I'll open a file here. You'll find a Claude Code icon here. Click on it. This will open Claude Code. There's another method — you can find it

in the sidebar as the Claude Code option. Click on it and you'll see the logo. After clicking, Claude Code will open on the left side. Then click on New Session. And you can see Claude Code has opened. Before using it, we need to type /model. Press Enter and select Minimax M2.5. When I type 'hey' here, you can see how fast it replies —

our Claude Code is running inside VS Code too. I can then ask it which model it is. And you can see we're using Minimax. Guys, if you want to learn how to use Claude Code in VS Code, I'll make a detailed video and post it on my channel soon. So guys, I've covered the Mac setup.

Now let's move on to Windows. Let me walk you through the Windows process. So first, open PowerShell. I'll start with the OpenCode process since it's very simple. Just go to your browser and visit the official OpenCode website. You'll find a command there. Don't use the curl command — instead, click on npm. You'll find an npm command here. Copy it.

And yes guys, you must have Node.js installed on Windows. First, search for 'Node.js' and visit the official website. Click on Download. Select Windows. To install Node.js on Windows, we first need to install Chocolatey. Go to the Chocolatey website and you'll find an install command. Copy it. Search for PowerShell and run it as administrator.

Click Yes, then paste the command and press Enter. This will install Chocolatey on your machine. Then close the PowerShell window and reopen it as administrator. Then use the second command to install Node.js. Type 'Y' and press Enter. Node.js will be installed on your machine. You can verify this by typing 'node -v'. And guys, if it's not showing right now, open a new

PowerShell window. So I open PowerShell — this time normally, not as administrator. Now I'll type 'node -v' and you can see version 24 is installed. Now go to OpenCode and copy the npm command, then paste it into your PowerShell. This will install OpenCode via npm. Then type 'opencode'. OpenCode will open in the Windows terminal.

Type /connect and press Enter. Then select OpenCode Zen and paste the API key here. Go to Zen, log in, then go to API Keys and copy the API key. Paste it here and press Enter. Then select the free model. You'll get access. Click on Minimax M2.5. Let me show you how well it works. And you can see

how fast it is. It answered in about 2 seconds. Because many people say it takes 2-3 minutes just to get a response. But you can see how fast it actually is. Press Control+C to exit. So now you know how to use OpenCode. OpenCode is similar to Claude Code — it's a CLI tool for AI-assisted coding, but it's open source. Now

let's look at the process for Claude Code. For those who want to run Claude Code in VS Code, they'll also need to complete this process. Go to the official Claude Code website and click on Documentation. Click on Quick Start — you'll find the Windows PowerShell command here. Copy it and open a new PowerShell window. Click the arrow,

select PowerShell, and paste the command here. This will install Claude Code on your Windows device. Now we need to configure Claude Code with the API key. Open File Explorer. Go to Local Disk C, then go to Users. Click on your username. You'll find the .claude folder there. Double-click it. You'll find the settings.json file inside.

If you don't have this file, create a new text document here and name it settings.json. I already have this file, so I won't create a new one. I'll open settings.json in Notepad. Press Enter after the first curly brace and paste the env configuration starting with 'env' up to the comma, and enter your API key here.

You need to enter the API key — go back to your browser and to OpenCode Zen, click on API Keys, copy the key and paste it here. Then save the file. And guys, with the code I'll provide, be careful not to create duplicates. Only copy what's needed. After saving, close the file and type 'claude' in

PowerShell and press Enter. And if 'claude' is not recognized, open a new PowerShell window and try typing 'claude' again. If it's still not working, we need to add the bin folder to the PATH. Search for 'Environment Variables' in Windows. Then click on Edit. You'll see System Environment Variables. Click on it. Then you'll see the

Environment Variables dialog. Click on it. Find the Path variable. Select it and click Edit. Then click New. Paste the path that Claude Code provided. If you didn't get one, replace 'YourUsername' with your actual username and click OK on all three dialogs. Next, open a new PowerShell window and close all others. Then type 'claude' and it will run. Select dark

mode. It will ask if you want to use the Anthropic API configuration you entered. Say yes and press Enter. Press Enter again and then select Trust This Folder. You can see our Claude Code is now running. Then type /model and you'll find Minimax listed here. Select it. And guys, if you don't know how to use Claude Code, I already posted a 30-minute tutorial on my channel

covering Claude Code from A to Z — after watching it you'll be completely familiar with Claude Code. You'll be a pro right away. I'll put the link in the description. And guys, let's test this now. I'll type 'hey' and you can see it has responded. That means our Claude Code is up and running.

Press Ctrl+C twice to exit. Now let's set this up in VS Code. You need to have VS Code installed on your machine after completing this process. You can download VS Code. I have a video on my channel showing how to install VS Code on Windows 11 and how to use it. To download VS Code, search on Google:

'Download VS Code'. Click the first link and click on Download. The installer will be downloaded. Go to the Downloads folder and run the installer. Accept the terms and guys, make sure to tick 'Open with Code' and then click Install. After installing VS Code, you'll see it open — continue without signing in, or you can sign in. Then

go to the Extensions tab. Click on it and search for 'Claude'. You'll find the first extension from Anthropic with a verified tick mark. Install it and click Trust Publisher. Click on it. Claude Code will then be installed in VS Code. Click Allow. Then, open a folder in VS Code. Click on any file in it, or double-click anywhere.

Wherever you want to use Claude Code, you'll see an option: Open Claude Code. Click on it. Your Claude Code window will open. If it doesn't open, click on the Claude Code icon in the sidebar. Click New Session. Your Claude Code window will open. It will load up — that's Claude Code inside VS Code. Then type /model here and

select Minimax. I'll type 'hey' and show you how our Claude Code in VS Code has also started working. I'll even ask which model this is. And it will confirm that it's Minimax M2.5. And you can see our Claude Code is up and running. And yes guys, I was told about this OpenCode Zen method by one of our subscribers.

His name is Rishabh Verma. I want to give him a shout-out. And I want to say thank you, because now all our subscribers can use this method. You can use Claude Code for free. So guys, if you want to learn how to use Claude Code and want to know its tips and tricks, click on the video on the left.

And if you want to know about a Claude Code alternative that is completely different and sometimes works even better than Claude Code, watch the video on the right. So guys, that was all for today's video. I'll see you in the next video. Until then, keep compiling the future.