Why GPTCode Isn’t Trying to Beat Anyone (And Why That’s the Point)

Let me be brutally honest: GPTCode is not going to beat Cursor’s UX. It won’t have Copilot’s polish. It probably won’t match whatever magical 95% accuracy the next AI coding startup promises.

And you know what? That’s completely fine.

The Problem with “Better”

Every AI coding tool today positions itself the same way:

“10x faster than competitors”
“99% accuracy” (citation needed)
“Ship code in minutes, not hours”
“AI that actually works™”

Then you use them and discover:

The UX is slick, but it’s a black box
Something breaks, you have no idea why
The cost is $30/month (forever)
You’re locked into their ecosystem
When it fails, you’re stuck waiting for a fix

What GPTCode Actually Is

GPTCode is different, not “better”:

1. Transparent by Default

When GPTCode’s Reviewer marks your code as FAIL even though it succeeded (yes, this happens), you can:

Read the exact code that’s broken (internal/agents/reviewer.go)
Understand WHY it failed (LLM returned bullets as issues)
Fix it yourself in 30 minutes
Submit a PR and help everyone

Cursor fails? You file a ticket and wait.

2. Hackable to the Core

Don’t like Symphony’s movement decomposition? Change it. Want a different Planner prompt? Edit it. Need a custom agent? Build one.

// It's just Go code
func (c *Conductor) isQueryTask(plan string, modifiedFiles []string) bool {
    // Your logic here
}

Other tools? Hope the vendor adds your feature someday.

3. Model Agnostic

Today you use Groq because it’s cheap and fast. Tomorrow OpenAI releases GPT-5? Switch in 2 minutes. Want to try DeepSeek R1 locally? Done.

backend:
  groq:
    router: llama-3.1-8b-instant
  ollama:
    editor: deepseek-r1:70b
  openai:
    query: gpt-5-turbo  # when it exists

Copilot/Cursor? You get what they give you.

4. Honest About Limitations

GPTCode’s E2E tests: 5/9 passing (55%)

Not “95% accuracy”. Not “just works”. Real numbers. Real problems. Real transparency.

You know exactly what you’re getting:

Query tasks? Work great (after recent fixes)
Edit tasks? Decent, improving
Complex refactors? Still learning
TDD workflows? Pretty solid

The Real Competition

GPTCode isn’t competing with Cursor or Copilot.

GPTCode is competing with:

Vendor lock-in → You control everything
Black boxes → Full source, full understanding
$30/month forever → $2-5/month or $0 local
“Trust us, it works” → See exactly how it works (and fails)

Who This Is For

Use Cursor if:

You want polished UX now
You don’t care about vendor lock-in
$20/month is pocket change
You just want it to work™

Use GPTCode if:

You want to understand your tools
You value control over polish
You’re OK fixing bugs yourself (and learning from it)
You want to contribute to something real
You refuse to pay $240/year for software you can’t inspect

The Vision

We’re not trying to build “the best AI coding tool.”

We’re building the most transparent, hackable, and affordable AI coding tool.

A tool where:

When it breaks, you can fix it
When you want a feature, you can build it
When you disagree with a design, you can change it
When the LLM landscape shifts, you can adapt instantly

The Reality Check

Will GPTCode ever have Cursor’s sleek UX? Probably not. Will it match Copilot’s marketing budget? Definitely not. Will it promise 99% accuracy? Nope—we’ll tell you it’s 55% and show you how to make it 75%.

But will it give you control, transparency, and freedom?

Absolutely.

What We’re Building

Here’s what we’re actually working on:

This Week (Dec 2025):

✅ Fixed Reviewer issue extraction (was marking SUCCESS as FAIL)
✅ Symphony now collapses redundant query movements
✅ Maestro skips validation for read-only tasks
📊 E2E: 5/9 passing (was 4/9) → 11% improvement

This Month:

Improve Symphony movement quality (target: 7/9 passing)
Add unit test coverage for all helpers
Better Planner success criteria generation
Strengthen Reviewer prompts

This Quarter:

Get E2E to 8/9 passing (89%)
Add telemetry (opt-in, transparent)
Improve cost tracking per agent
Documentation overhaul

Notice what’s NOT on the list:

❌ “Revolutionize AI coding”
❌ “10x developer productivity”
❌ “95% accuracy guaranteed”

Just honest, incremental improvements you can track in git commits.

The Invitation

If you want:

A tool that’s transparent about what it can and can’t do
A codebase you can understand and modify
A community building something real, not hyped
An AI coding assistant that respects your time, money, and intelligence

Then GPTCode is for you.

If you want something that “just works” out of the box with zero configuration and perfect UX?

Honestly, try Cursor first. No hard feelings.

Get Involved

# Try it yourself
go install github.com/jadercorrea/gptcode/cmd/gptcode@latest
gptcode setup

# See exactly what's broken
go test ./tests/e2e/...

# Fix something
git clone https://github.com/jadercorrea/gptcode
cd gptcode
# internal/agents/reviewer.go is a good place to start

We’re not here to beat anyone.

We’re here to be different. Transparent. Yours.

Disagree? Have ideas? Join the discussion

Why GPTCode Isn't Trying to Beat Anyone (And Why That's the Point)