Alibaba Cloud's official Qwen Code AI programming agent recently announced that it will provide users with 2000 free daily runs without any Token limits. This free policy mainly targets users in mainland China, while overseas users enjoy 1000 daily OpenRouter API calls.
Qwen Code is an AI programming agent that supports a terminal command-line interface, similar to products like Google's Gemini CLI, Anthropic's Claude Code, and OpenAI's Codex CLI. Compared to its competitors, the main advantage of Qwen Code lies in its more generous free quota and convenient installation process.
As a direct competitor, Google Gemini CLI only provides 1000 daily calls, and the operation is relatively complicated. In addition to the same policy of no Token limit and 60 API calls per minute, Qwen Code allows users to quickly install and use it through a simple account verification and a single command (npx @qwen-code / qwen-code@latest).
Alibaba Cloud's move aims to lower the barrier for developers to use AI programming tools, attracting more users through high free call quotas and a simple installation method. In addition, the official also provides rich resources and support for developers on GitHub, further building its developer ecosystem.
The launch of Qwen Code has made competition in the AI programming tool market even fiercer. Alibaba Cloud is striving to capture market share by offering free strategies and optimized user experiences, especially in mainland China, where its high free call quotas are very attractive to developers.