Why are you still using local coding agents?

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We launched Hoplite today - it's a passion project driven by our love for dev tools (especially ones that feel incredible to use, like Linear).

In simple terms, Hoplite allows you to 'effortlessly' use cloud coding agents. We port over your local sessions/memories/MCP servers, so you can just pick up right from where you left off, but now you can close your laptop lid!

One of the things we're most curious about is why people are still using local agents like OpenCode or Claude Code. Is it stickiness? Lack of good cloud solutions? Cost? Or something else? Would love to know!

( p.s, we have a super ultra rare promotion running right now, so you can try out the full platform for free 😁)

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I think local agents still win mostly because they're already there, they understand the environment I'm working in, and there's almost zero friction to starting a session. But the moment a task becomes long-running or I want several agents working in parallel, the cloud starts making much more sense, especially if Hoplite can preserve the same sessions, tools, and MCP setup without making me reconfigure everything. Feels like the real unlock is making moving between local and cloud feel invisible rather than forcing developers to choose one forever :)

Β That makes a ton of sense! We're actually launching a desktop app very soon, and one of the features we're adding is seamless hand-off. So you can just say 'switch this over to a cloud agent', and it'll do it without any hassle. (plus some cool stuff around automatically doing the hand-off when the computer's lid gets closed/it shuts off)

Β Okay, then you're basically building the exact thing I was describing :))

The automatic hand-off when the lid closes sounds especially smart - if local and cloud can really become one continuous session instead of two separate workflows, I can definitely see myself using that.

 Awesome!! Will let you know when it's out 😁

In my opinion, it’s mostly about workflow and control. Local agents are already deeply integrated with the repo, terminal, files, and existing MCP setup, so switching to cloud isn’t just about getting the agent off your laptop.

BTW, congrats on your launch!!! Share the link to your page and I'll support you! πŸ˜‰

Personally I use cloud agents for almost everything. But there are a couple times where I'll need to boot up Claude Code locally (e.g. for clearing up disk space and editing local documents) - however this feels like missing tooling on our (Hoplite's) part that should enable this type of workflow.

The hand-off story is compelling, but the reason I still keep a lot of work local is control over context boundaries. Local runs let me inspect exactly which files, secrets, and tools are in scope, keep latency predictable, and avoid the "works in cloud, breaks on my machine" drift. If cloud hand-off can preserve that determinism and make approval plus secret exposure obvious at the transfer point, the local-vs-cloud split starts to disappear.