I do. For local dev work, I'm mostly using jetbrains' Junie, I can swap between a collection of models from google, openai, anthrophic.
I've had more than a few people tell me "oh, it's so much cheaper to use a $20 claude account" or "i've never hit a limit ever using my openai". Inevitably.. I end up reading/hearing "oh, I need to give it another couple hours to start using it again"... I've never hit that with my approach, even if it's costing me a bit more. Being able to work when I want when I have time has some value.
I also have openai and anthropic direct API billing set up for hosted and client projects that need to call out to an LLM service.
Why not use a codex or claude subscription? If you use the entire usage allotment on the $200 plan it's about $2,000 in equivalent API costs. Switching providers may be valuable but it's quite literally an order of magnitude cheaper.
That's... $200. That's a lot for me. And I'm tied in to one set of models. Using something else (like Junie) I can swap and try models from multiple vendors.
I would investigate if the $20/month plan is good enough for your use: The token-based plans usually work out to be much more expensive than the monthly ones. Or get both the Anthropic and Codex $20/month plans. I don't know if this makes sense compared to your current use case, but there is a very good chance it does given how much the per-token plans cost. The primary use case for them is enterprises that aren't allowed to use the monthly subscriptions.
Would you mind sharing how much it's costing you? I've been wanting to use APIs from within Intellij, but I hesitate because of uncertainty about the cost.
Junie is $30/month, and I get $35 in credits. There are times I go over the limit, and you can 'top up' in increments of $5 (min). On a busy month (for me) I may have spent and extra $40. Initially I didn't hit the limit. As it's more of a daily driver, I'm averaging an extra $20, so... maybe $50/month. Give it a shot - the CLI version made it more usable.
I thought Air was JB's multi-model interface? What is Junie? (I see the buttons, but am very confused by JB's AI offerings in general)
Is it worth the ~10x extra cost over the subscriptions? (This is obviously a leading question). Also, I think you can use OpenAI's subcription login with Air, but not Claude's.
Junie is their agent(?) that can connect to multiple providers. AFAIK you can bring-your-own-key or buy a subscription from them that lets you use your credits across multiple vendors (openai, anthropic, google) across a handful of models from each vendor. So yeah, you can use your openai credentials in junie vs paying for jetbrains junie credits.
Is it 'worth it'? I dunno. I've not used dedicated subscriptions. I adopted Junie when it first came out, and it's been 'good enough'. As I say, I've never hit the 'oh, i have to stop for several hours until they let me in again' wall because of just using the API approach.
As my monthly spend goes up, I might try something else out, but... gpt6-luna just came out. That is likely going to cut my spend already.
I do. Sharing training data with OpenAI gives me a lot of complementary tokens. I go above that but it's still quite economical and I pick the right model for the task (Luna for most).
unsure this is quite the same thing, but I often swap my phone to gray scale to reduce brightness overall (and 'reduce whitepoint' sometimes) because at night colors are too stimulating.
I was brought on to a team as WFH - there was an office, but most of the team I worked with were in different states. But a lot of folks had left 6-12 months previous. I was stepping in to a void, and just had some jira tickets.
Manager above me wasn't technical, didn't know my project, just said "get done what you can". I worked and filled out timesheet. I was pinging the ticket owner, no response. Tickets were for an external client. Asked manager to arrange meeting. Took 2 weeks. Got a meeting with the external client using the system who had put these tickets in. "That was Jeremy, he doesn't work here any more... I think he was talking to Glen". Well.. Glen left our team 6 months earlier.
Emily at the client I was talking to had no idea what this was for, cause she only started 2 months earlier. Another week later she said "I don't think we need any of this - whoever asked for it is gone, and I have no info".
I had recorded... probably 130 hours on a few of these tickets mostly just trying to get stuff to build. Emily couldn't update tickets because it was tied to Jeremy who had left.
2 weeks later I had some department head at our company about 4 levels above me call me on my personal phone and start yelling at me telling me I'd put the project way over budget, I was 6 months behind schedule, and was jeopardizing the entire client relationship, and she was threatening to fire me. Apparently the whole budget for the project was 60 hours - I'd more than doubled that plus whatever people before me had done, etc. But... the client contacts I had had no idea what it was for, or really even who wanted it in the first place. I remember this woman saying "the budget was only 60 hours - you blew it up!" I said "I never gave those estimates in the first place, and there's no one here who even knows what this code is to even ask". "None of that matters, we may lose this client because of your incompetence...."
That was pure insanity. I left shortly after - already had something else lined up, but was on the fence about leaving (devil you know vs devil you don't). At that point, I knew I'd had enough of this devil. I left for another remote/WFH position.
This was also ... towards the end of 2020 - depths of covid, lockdowns, etc. Crazy times indeed.
Next time go to your manager and say "I'm seriously considering axing this project and I want your approval to do so. x, y, and z are no longer applicable and the landscape of the client relationship has changed in the interim as well."
re: department head at our company about 4 levels above me... -- what could be going through this person's mind when they continue yelling at someone after the situation has been explained? A friend got screamed at by some upper level person for being three months behind on a project. They contined screaming even after my friend explained it was his first day at the company.
Not OP, but I pay. And it was an annoyance today for several hours that did impact some work.
I don't need one, but I do have that because it's doing a bit more work than just git hosting (administratable access for others on the team, build actions, etc) and yes... I'm paying for it.
"...deplete their stockpile while avoiding the responsibility of supporting them in their mission by taking care of supplies."
And blames Biden for this mess. "Oh... the cupboards were bare when I came back...". If you KNEW you were running low on supplies, why start a war? There's enough general answers to this, all revolving around his immaturity, lack of intelligence and the cult around him - the truth is somewhere in the middle of all that...
I've had more than a few people tell me "oh, it's so much cheaper to use a $20 claude account" or "i've never hit a limit ever using my openai". Inevitably.. I end up reading/hearing "oh, I need to give it another couple hours to start using it again"... I've never hit that with my approach, even if it's costing me a bit more. Being able to work when I want when I have time has some value.
I also have openai and anthropic direct API billing set up for hosted and client projects that need to call out to an LLM service.