I didn't start SuperBuilder because I wanted to.
The $16,000 Problem
I've been building software for over a decade. I was an early adopter of AI coding tools. Cursor, specifically. I went all in — used it for everything, paid for every tier, believed in the future they were selling.
Then I looked at my bills. $16,000+ spent on Cursor.
Sixteen thousand dollars. On an editor. And the worst part? I wasn't even shipping faster. Their internal mechanics are designed to make you consume more — re-indexing, re-running, context that doesn't carry over. You end up paying what you'd pay for Claude Code directly, but more. Way more.
Three months ago I said: "This is insane."
I'm a founder. I obsess over unit economics. I couldn't justify burning that kind of money on tooling that wasn't even the best option anymore. So I started looking for something better. Something that was higher quality and cost less.
Discovering Claude Code
That search led me back to Claude Code. The raw CLI agent from Anthropic. No IDE lock-in. No opaque pricing. Just a terminal, a model, and your codebase.
The quality was immediately better. Smarter edits. Deeper understanding of context. Faster iteration loops. And it cost a fraction of what I was paying Cursor.
But the interface? The interface was painful.
Everything That Was Broken
Claude Code in the terminal is powerful. But living in it every day revealed a long list of frustrations:
- You can't search your messages. Hundreds of conversations, zero search.
- Working with multiple threads is chaos. No sidebar, no organization.
- The terminal experience is rough. No split panes, no persistence.
- Upload an image? Good luck finding it later.
- No way to automate anything. No scheduled prompts, no queues.
- Database visualization? Nonexistent.
- No skill system. Want to generate images with DALL-E mid-conversation? Too bad.
- Run out of credits? You're stuck. No way to queue messages for later.
- No cost tracking. You have no idea how much you're spending per thread.
So I Built It Myself
I got frustrated enough to do something about it. I started building the tool I wished existed — first for myself, then for my friends, then for anyone who felt the same pain.
SuperBuilder is a native Mac app that wraps Claude Code (and soon other AI agents) with everything the terminal is missing: a real UI, persistent threads, multi-project support, cost tracking, image uploads you can actually find, a skill system for extending what the AI can do, debug mode, branch battles, and a whole lot more.
It's free. It runs locally. You bring your own API key or subscription — no middleman markup.
What We Believe
Your money, your model
Use your own Anthropic subscription. No reselling tokens at 3x markup. No opaque pricing.
Local-first, always
Your code, your conversations, your data. Everything stays on your machine. No cloud sync, no telemetry.
Build tools, not walls
Extend it, make it yours. We're building for builders.
Ship, don't pitch
Every feature exists because someone needed it today. Not because a roadmap said so.
SuperBuilder isn't a startup play. It's a bet that developers deserve better tools — tools that respect their time, their money, and their intelligence.
If you've ever looked at your AI tooling bill and thought "this is insane," if you've ever lost a conversation in a sea of terminal tabs, if you just want something that works without charging you a fortune —
Welcome to SuperBuilder. You're the reason I built this.
Jorge Ferreiro
Founder & Builder · @jgferreiro
Free · macOS