Replit, one of the best-known AI coding platforms, is no longer working with Anthropic, according to its CEO — who says OpenAI won the business on cost, partnership, and performance. One insider disputes that the Anthropic partnership has actually ended, so treat this as a split that is public but not yet fully confirmed.
October 17, 2026
What did Masad actually say?
Speaking onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Thursday, Replit co-founder and CEO Amjad Masad confirmed that the company is no longer working with Anthropic. Replit had announced a partnership with OpenAI in August, but at the time framed it as an addition; nothing suggested the Anthropic relationship was over.
Masad said the decision came down to several factors, cost among them. In his account, Replit judges models on an internal benchmark alongside a public one it publishes, and OpenAI’s Sol and Astra models consistently came out ahead at building vibe-coded applications from scratch. His conclusion, in substance: OpenAI is simply the better partner for Replit right now — on price, on the partnership itself, and on raw performance for the work Replit’s users actually do.
Why is this a notable loss for Anthropic?
Replit’s browser-based platform lets users build and deploy apps without leaving the browser, and Claude models powered much of that experience under the Anthropic partnership — a relationship credited with helping Replit grow its revenue significantly. Coding has been Anthropic’s strongest commercial story, so a flagship coding platform publicly switching sides, and saying the rival’s models test better on its own workloads, lands harder than a routine vendor change. Masad also shared growth figures onstage: enterprise contracts have risen from about 2% of Replit’s revenue last year to about 15% this year, with business customers now accounting for more than half of revenue — the segment where model costs bite hardest.
Is the split confirmed?
Not cleanly. A person familiar with the Anthropic–Replit partnership told TechCrunch the partnership is still in place, rejecting Masad’s characterization. And Replit’s own recent output points both ways: a company blog post in late September described Claude Fable 5 and Fable 5.1 as running in Replit Agent’s production environment, and around the same time a Replit product employee was publicly promoting work with Anthropic’s Opus 5.5. TechCrunch has asked Replit for clarification and had not received it at publication.
Why it matters
For buyers, the lesson is practical: at platform scale, the “best” coding model is the one that wins on your own benchmark at a price your margins survive — and suppliers can be swapped when that answer changes. For Anthropic, the timing is awkward. The company is weeks from an expected IPO and has been telling investors a growth story; a top-tier coding customer announcing a defection on cost and performance is not the headline it wants. For OpenAI, it is another proof point that aggressive pricing plus strong coding models wins platform deals. Our take: wait for Replit’s clarification before treating the divorce as final — but the fact that its CEO said it onstage, on the record, tells you where the leverage in the model market currently sits.
FAQ
Has Replit stopped using Claude?
That is what CEO Amjad Masad said at TechCrunch Disrupt. An insider familiar with the partnership disputes it, and Replit had not clarified the position when TechCrunch published.
Why did Replit say it switched?
Masad cited cost, partnership, and performance, saying OpenAI’s Sol and Astra models beat Claude on Replit’s internal and public benchmarks for building applications from scratch.
When did Replit partner with OpenAI?
Replit announced its OpenAI partnership in August 2026. At the time there was no indication the Anthropic relationship had ended.
Does this affect Replit users?
Users build on Replit’s platform rather than picking the underlying model themselves, so the practical effect would show up in agent quality, speed, and pricing rather than in any action users need to take.
Sources: TechCrunch (October 16, 2026), Unite.AI