Free AI Models Collapse Under Daytime Load, Forcing a Retraction

Hello everyone, this is Lao Liu

A few days ago, I recommended several free models to everyone:

Lao Liu personally tested 20+ free models: only 3 are usable, and the biggest pitfall isn't the models themselves

I didn't expect to be proven wrong so quickly.

I did intensively use free models for two weeks. Based on my experience, among the many free providers, only the following are worth using for daily lightweight tasks.

• SenseTime "RiRiXin"
  • deepseek-v4-flash
• agnes-ai
  • Agnes 2.0 Flash
• Opencode
  • deepseek-v4-flash-free
  • mimo-v2.5-free
  • big-pickle

My feeling at the time was that the services from these three providers were relatively stable, not prone to hitting rate limits, and I didn't notice any obvious intelligence degradation.

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But I discovered I overlooked a very important issue. As free models, I mainly used them at night. During daytime working hours, I didn't dare use free models much due to security concerns.

Then yesterday, around 4 PM, I used a free model to modify a piece of my own code and suddenly realized that during peak daytime hours, these models are almost all unusable.

• SenseTime "RiRiXin", Opencode
  • Hit rate limits, and almost on the first round of conversation
• agnes-ai
  • Frequent network failures, might work after retrying, but unstable
• big-pickle
  • I saw someone online say the backend for this is GLM-5.2. I believed it at first, but yesterday I discovered a large number of errors marked as deepseek

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Setting aside security concerns, the biggest problem with free models is service stability.

So I still advise everyone not to rely entirely on free models. At least buy one subscription.

Because very often, the time you waste, the interrupted train of thought, and the frustration you feel are far more costly than the token fees you save.

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