Two labs, one job
Qwen3.8-Max is $2 / $6 with a #9 agent-board slot. DeepSeek-V4-Pro is $0.66 / $1.98 at #8. For pure coding API spend, DeepSeek is the default. Qwen wins if your data residency or existing Bailian credits point at Alibaba.
Agents that actually run them
Cline and Aider are the usual open clients. Trae is the ByteDance IDE many Chinese developers already have. Neither lab needs you to buy a Western IDE seat unless you want Cursor’s editor.