1Code was the open-source “Cursor for Claude Code” that pulled 5.6k stars in two months and then went silent in March 2026, and it stays here because the silence is the information.
What it is #
1Code is an open-source (Apache-2.0) coding agent client from the 21st.dev team, shipped as a macOS desktop app plus web, Windows, and Linux surfaces, wrapping Claude Code and Codex behind a Cursor-like UI. Each chat runs in its own git worktree with diff previews and a built-in git client, sessions organize on a kanban board, and background agents run in cloud sandboxes when the laptop sleeps. The feature list also carried BYOK model selection, MCP servers and a plugin marketplace, automations triggered from GitHub, Linear, Slack, or git events, chat forking, voice input, and a PWA plus API for starting and monitoring agents from a phone or a script.
Status #
Dormant: the repository shows 5,582 stars, 611 forks, and 45 open issues, but its last push and its last release (v0.0.84) both landed 2026-03-06, seven months before this check (GitHub API, as of 2026-10-06). The launch Show HN drew 75 points and 49 comments on 2026-01-15, and the thread’s sharpest exchange was about price: commenters called the $20/month hosted web tier expensive for “a web interface and a sandbox”, and the founders answered that the paid tier was about signal, not monetization. The product domain now redirects to the GitHub repository, so the hosted surface this note’s pricing discussed is gone from the public web, and nothing in the repo records a handoff, an archive notice, or a successor. I read the record as an abandoned open-source client rather than a pivot: no successor product is announced, and the team’s other properties continued separately.
Strengths #
- The January feature set matched or beat the closed Mac clients on paper: worktree-per-chat, kanban, background cloud agents, automations, phone access, and an API, all under Apache-2.0.
- The launch thread shows demonstrated demand for a GUI over the harness CLI, with the founders’ CLI-struggle story drawing hundreds of thousands of views on social media.
Cautions #
- Seven months without a commit or release as of 2026-10-06, with 45 open issues and no maintainer response on record.
- The hosted tier launched at $20/month against a free CLI, and the pricing objection in the launch thread was never resolved by traction evidence.
- The domain redirecting to the repo means there is no product to evaluate today, only a codebase.
Pricing #
The desktop client is free and open source under Apache-2.0. At launch, the hosted web tier cost $20 per month for remote sandboxes; the hosted surface is no longer verifiably available.
Price history #
| Date | Plan | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-01 | Hosted web | Baseline: $20/month for the hosted web tier (remote sandboxes) at launch; desktop client free |
Compared to #
- Emdash: the open cross-platform client that kept shipping; choose Emdash for a maintained Apache-2.0 alternative to the closed Mac apps.
- AgentGrid: the closed canvas client that is still releasing near-daily; AgentGrid is what 1Code’s momentum looks like when it continues.
- Vibe Kanban: the other vendor-lost project in this category, with the difference that its community kept committing after the shutdown, while 1Code has no recorded handoff at all.
Bottom line #
Recommended only as a study in the client genre’s churn: strong launch, fast stars, silent spring. Not for adoption; if the idea appeals, evaluate Emdash or the maintained closed clients on their own merits.
Changes #
- 2026-10-06 - Created after the entrant scan confirmed the repository has been silent since 2026-03-06; recorded as dormant with the launch-thread pricing record.
See also #
- Emdash - the maintained open client in the same genre
- Vibe Kanban - the vendor-loss comparison case with a living community
- Flowise - the archived genre-mate whose post-mortem named coding agents as the cause
- Conductor - the funded closed client that shows what continued investment looks like
References #
https://github.com/21st-dev/1code - repository, feature list, license, stars, and the March 2026 last push (GitHub API, as of 2026-10-06)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46637723 - the 75-point launch thread and the $20/month pricing critique
https://1code.dev - the product domain, which now redirects to the GitHub repository (fetched 2026-10-06)
https://api.github.com/repos/21st-dev/1code - the API record of stars, forks, and the 2026-03-06 push date (as of 2026-10-06)