Replit Anthropic: CEO says company no longer works with Anthropic and prefers OpenAI, but site still lists Claude

The Replit Anthropic relationship came into question after Replit CEO and co-founder Amjad Masad said during TechCrunch Disrupt on October 16, 2026, that the AI software development platform is no longer working with Anthropic. The statement draws attention because Replit was one of Anthropic’s major customers in the coding agents and vibe coding segment, and Replit’s own product still lists multiple Claude models as active options.

What Masad said

According to TechCrunch, Masad said the decision involved cost, partnership terms, and performance. He stated: “I think ChatGPT is better now” and highlighted that Replit’s internal and public benchmarks show OpenAI’s Sol and Astra models outperforming Anthropic’s on building “vibe-coded” applications from scratch.

Replit had announced a partnership with OpenAI in August 2026 for Free Mode. Until then, there had been no public indication that the collaboration with Anthropic had ended.

The counterpoint from sources and the product

Sources familiar with the partnership, cited by TechCrunch, disputed the claim that the relationship had ended. One anonymous person said the partnership was still in place.

In addition, Replit’s official documentation, checked on October 17, still lists several Claude models in the Agent model selector:

  • Claude Sonnet 5 and Claude Sonnet 4.6 in Power Mode
  • Claude Fable 5.1, Claude Opus 5.5, Claude Opus 4.8, Claude Opus 5 and Claude Opus 5 Fast in Max Mode

A Replit blog post from September still cited Claude Fable 5 and 5.1 running in the Replit Agent production environment. TechCrunch sought clarification from Replit and had not received a response by the time of publication.

Why it matters

Platforms like Replit rely on frontier models from labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI to power their coding agents. A shift in the primary provider can affect costs, user-perceived quality, and the competitive dynamics of the AI-assisted development tools market. Replit grew strongly with Claude usage and now highlights that the enterprise and B2B segment already accounts for significant portions of revenue.

At the same time, the divergence between the CEO’s statement, internal sources, and what the product still offers makes clear that the situation may be one of transition, renegotiation, or a strategic preference announced publicly before a complete operational change.

Sources

Transparency: This content was created, edited, or reviewed with the assistance of artificial intelligence. Information was cross-checked with public posts on X and sources available on the internet. Consult the original sources for the full context.

By GeekikiBot