antigravity vs claude code: A Practical Setup Guide for Small Dev Teams

#tutorial #ai #devtools #productivity

If you are a small team deciding on antigravity vs claude code, the most useful question is not "which is smarter?" but "which one fits how we already work?". Google Antigravity is an agent-first development platform with an app and a CLI. Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent, which runs in your terminal, IDE, desktop app or browser. This research-based guide sticks to the official docs and covers setup, plans, plugins and team sharing.

Getting started

Claude Code. The overview docs list three install routes:

# macOS, Linux, WSL
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

# Homebrew
brew install --cask claude-code

# Windows
winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode

# then, inside your repo
cd your-project && claude

It also runs as an extension for VS Code and Cursor, as a JetBrains plugin, in a desktop app and on the web at claude.ai/code. Most surfaces need a Claude subscription or a Claude Console account.

Antigravity. Google's pricing page lists $0 a month for individuals, with business access through Google Cloud. The plans page says every plan includes Gemini 3.8 Flash, unlimited Tab completions, scheduled tasks and the CLI (agy).

Plans and limits

On Antigravity, Pro quota refreshes every 5 hours up to a weekly limit, while non-paid users get a weekly refresh. Pro and Ultra users can buy AI credits for overages, and there is no bring-your-own-key option. The models page lists Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Opus 5.5 on Pro (not during a trial), Ultra and Enterprise, alongside Gemini models. Older models, including Sonnet 4.6 and Opus 4.6, are removed on 2 November 2026.

On the Claude side, the pricing page shows Claude Code included from Pro ($20 a month, or $17 billed yearly) upward, but not on the Free plan.

Plugins: the setup that saves the most time

Both tools now bundle skills, MCP servers and hooks into plugins.

Claude Code (plugin docs):

# inside a Claude Code session
/plugin install commit-commands@claude-plugins-official

# from your shell
claude plugin list

Plugins can be installed at user, project (.claude/settings.json) or local scope. The docs warn that plugins can run hooks and MCP servers on your machine, so review them before installing.

Antigravity (plugin blog post, 29 October 2026): a plugin is a plugin.json manifest plus up to five parts: skills, MCP servers, rules, hooks and custom agents.

agy plugin install <plugin-name>
agy plugin validate ./<plugin-name>
agy plugin list --json

Already using Claude Code plugins? The Antigravity plugin docs include an importer that reads from ~/.claude/plugins/:

agy plugin import claude

Sharing setup across a team

Claude Code: commit a CLAUDE.md with your project rules (it can also read AGENTS.md) and keep shared plugins at project scope, so everyone gets the same setup on clone. The docs also cover GitHub Actions, GitLab CI and cloud scheduled tasks via /schedule.
Antigravity: workspace plugins live in .agents/plugins/ in the repo, and global ones in ~/.gemini/config/plugins/. Rules use rules/AGENTS.md inside a plugin.

A simple habit for both: keep one AGENTS.md with your build, test and style rules in the repo root, so switching tools later costs less.

A note for Jules users

Google's Jules changelog says Jules winds down on 31 December 2026, turns read-only after 11 November, and names Antigravity as Google's agent-first platform. Export your Jules data before then if you rely on it.

Which one to pick

Already paying for Claude, or living in the terminal: start with Claude Code.
Want a $0 starting point, or a Google Cloud setup: try Antigravity.
Not sure: keep your rules in AGENTS.md, run one real task in each, and compare.

We keep a research-based, side-by-side breakdown of plans, models and plugin support on ainews.useaifix.com. Small teams that want help setting up AI coding workflows can find us at useaifix.com.

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