Over the past few days me and Gemini have been working on pseudocode for an app I want to do. I had Gemini break the pseudocode in logical steps and create markdown files for each step. This came out to be 47 md files. I wasn't sure where to take this after that. It's a lot.

Then I signed up for Claude code with Max. I went for the upper tier as I need to get this project rolling. I started up pycharm, dropped all 45 md files from gemini and let Claude Code go. Sure, there were questions from Claude, but in less than 30 mins I had a semi-working flask app. Yes, there were bugs. This is and should be expected. Knowing how I would handle the errors personally helped me to guide Claude to finding the issue.

It was an amazing experience and I appreciate the CLI. If this works out how I hope, I'll be canceling my subscriptions to other AI services. Don't get me started on the AI services I've tried. I'm not looking for perfection. Just to get very close.

I would highly suggest looking into Claude code with a max subscription if you are comfortable with the CLI.

Anthropic has some secret something that makes it dominant in the coding world. I tried others, but always need to rely on 3.7. I'll probably keep my gemini sub but I'm canceling all others.

Sorry for the lengthy post.

I was genuinely surprised when somebody made a working clone of my app Shotomatic using Claude in 15 minutes.

At first I didn't believe it, so I decided to give it a try myself. I thought, screw it, and went all-in for the $200 Max plan to see what it could really do.

Man, I was impressed.

The feature (the one in the video) I tried was something like this:

You register a few search keywords, the app (Shotomatic) opens the browser, runs the searches, and automatically takes screenshots of the results. The feature should seamlessly integrate with the existing app.

The wild part? I didn’t write a single line of code.

The entire thing was implemented using Claude Code, and I didn't touch the code myself at all. I only interacted through the terminal giving instructions. From planning to implementation, code review, creating of PR and merging, everything was done with natural language.

It was an insanely productive, and honestly a little scary experience.

Why haven't I tried this before?

I'm currently using Google Gemini 2.5 Pro for free but I'm thinking of going back to Claude specifically to use Claude Code. My question are, how quick do you reach the limits for Claude Code? Does it do a good job compared to Cursor with Sonnet 3.7 or Gemini 2.5 Pro?

I'm a sr. software engineer with ~16 years working experience. I'm also a huge believer in AI, and fully expect my job to be obsolete within the decade. I've used all of the most expensive tiers of all of the AI models extensively to test their capabilities. I've never posted a review of any of them but this pro-Claude hysteria has made me post something this time.

If you're a software engineer you probably already realize there is truly nothing special about Claude Code relative to other AI assisted tools out there such as Cline, Cursor, Roo, etc. And if you're a human being you probably also realize that this subreddit is botted to hell with Claude Max ads.

I initially tried Claude Code back in February and it failed on even the simplest tasks I gave it, constantly got stuck in loops of mistakes, and overall was a disappointment. Still, after the hundreds of astroturfed threads and comments in this subreddit I finally relented and thought "okay maybe after Sonnet/Opus 4 came out its actually good now" and decided to buy the $100 plan to give it another shot.

Same result. I wasted about 5 hours today trying to accomplish tasks that could have been done with Cline in 30-40 minutes because I was certain I was doing something wrong and I needed to figure out what. Beyond the usual infinite loops Claude Code often finds itself in (it has been executing a simple file refactor task for 783 seconds as I write this), the 4.0 models have the fun new feature of consistently lying to you in order to speed along development. On at least 3 separate occasions today I've run into variations of:

● You're absolutely right - those are fake status updates! I apologize for that terrible implementation. Let me fix this fake output and..

I have to admit that I was suckered into this purchase from the hundreds of glowing comments littering this subreddit, so I wanted to give a realistic review from an engineer's pov. My take is that Claude Code is probably the most amazing tool on earth for software creation if you have never used alternatives like Cline, Cursor, etc. I think Claude Code might even be better than them if you are just creating very simple 1-shot webpages or CRUD apps, but anything more complex or novel and it is simply not worth the money.

inb4 the genius experts come in and tell me my prompts are the issue.

Hi everyone, I'm a developer who has been using Claude Code Max ($200 plan) for 3 months now. With renewal coming up on the 21st, I wanted to share my honest experience.

Initial Experience (First 1-2 months): I was genuinely impressed. Fast prototyping, reasonable code architecture, and great ability to understand requirements even with vague descriptions. It felt like a real productivity booster.

Recent Changes I've Noticed (Past 2-3 weeks):

1. Performance degradation: Noticeable drop in code quality compared to earlier experience

2. Unnecessary code generation: Frequently includes unused code that needs cleanup

3. Excessive logging: Adds way too many log statements, cluttering the codebase

4. Test quality issues: Generates superficial tests that don't provide meaningful validation

5. Over-engineering: Tends to create overly complex solutions for simple requests

6. Problem-solving capability: Struggles to effectively address persistent performance issues

7. Reduced comprehension: Missing requirements even when described in detail

Current Situation: I'm now spending more time reviewing and fixing generated code than the actual generation saves me. It feels like constantly code-reviewing a junior developer's work rather than having a reliable coding partner.

Given the $200/month investment, I'm questioning the value proposition and currently exploring alternative tools.

Question for the community: Has anyone else experienced similar issues recently? Or are you still having a consistently good experience with Claude Code?

I'm genuinely curious if this is a temporary issue or if others are seeing similar patterns. If performance improves, I'd definitely consider coming back, but right now I'm not seeing the ROI that justified the subscription cost.

Did anyone else got max 20 plan free? 🤔

I have been using Claude since it became available in Canada. I have been working on a project that has several conversations - basically because I would have to start new conversations when current one got too long. I have basically the same 4 files that I update in the project knowledge repository (uses around 60% of the repository's limit). They are code files (3 Python scripts and a notebook - maybe 320kb total for all 4). Whenever I make changes to the code, I'll remove the old one and transfer the new one to the repository so Claude is always reviewing the most recent version.

Today I decided to upgrade to the Max plan to increase my usage with Claude (longer conversations?). I removed the scripts and reloaded the updated versions so Claude is again reviewing the most recent versions. No sooner did I add the files I get a message - This conversation has reached its maximum length. I didn't even get a chance to start a new conversation. I can't because of this length limit.

This is shoddy customer service - actually, it's worse than that, but I am trying to be polite. I have reached out for a refund because this level of service is completely unacceptable. If you are considering an upgrade - DON'T! Save your money, or buy a plan with a competing AI. If this is the level of customer service Anthropic has decided is acceptable, they will not be around much longer.

I used to use Aider with various paid APIs or build the agents myself. But recently, I've given Claude Code a try. I have zero regrets on the $200 Claude Max 20x sub, despite still having quite a bit of credit left in OpenAI and DeepSeek (I'm still thinking of ways to utilize them).

I do three heavy programming sessions per day following their 5-hour rolling window (two for jobs, one for my personal projects and the post-grad workload). And with the separated pools for Opus and Sonnet recently, I exhaust them both during each session, doubling the amount of work done.

The subscription pays for itself (freelance paychecks, profits from products, improved QoL across the board, etc.) with an insane ROI on top of that (freeing up a large amount of time for personal well-being and hobbies, e.g., Dhamma study, walking, meditation, video games, relationships).

This will be your best investment if you do anything related to computers, period. (I'm not affiliated with Anthropic in any way, just stating the facts.)

If any tech firm knows about this but does not provide their employees with Claude Max subscriptions, then they're not really serious. They don't really care about their product, only want to farm venture cash, and are stingy PoS who just want to exploit offshore low-cost laborers.