Wildly understating this part.
Even the best local models (ones you run on beefy 128GB+ RAM machines) get nowhere close to the sheer intelligence of Claude/Gemini/Codex. At worst these models will move you backwards and just increase the amount of work Claude has to do when your limits reset.
I was using GLM on ZAI coding plan (jerry rigged Claude Code for $3/month), but finding myself asking Sonnet to rewrite 90% of the code GLM was giving me. At some point I was like "what the hell am I doing" and just switched.
To clarify, the code I was getting before mostly worked, it was just a lot less pleasant to look at and work with. Might be a matter of taste, but I found it had a big impact on my morale and productivity.
This is a very common sequence of events.
The frontier hosted models are so much better than everything else that it's not worth messing around with anything lesser if doing this professionally. The $20/month plans go a long way if context is managed carefully. For a professional developer or consultant, the $200/month plan is peanuts relative to compensation.