OpenCode + Qwen 3.6 PRO = Full App INSTANTLY (100% FREE)

Income stream surfers| 00:14:22|Apr 4, 2026
Chapters23
Explores whether you can build an entire SaaS using free AI models, sharing initial impressions of the Quen 3.6 Plus and its viability for a zero-cost build.

A fresh takedown of building a full SaaS app for free using OpenCode, Convex, and Qwen 3.6+, showing real-time setup, auth with Clerk, and live UI with a working dashboard.

Summary

Income stream surfers’ host showcases a hands-on sprint to assemble an entire SaaS app using only free tools and an open-source stack. The video centers on implementing Convex AI with the Qwen 3.6+ model, wiring up Next.js, Clerk authentication, and a working local environment. The creator walks through selecting the model, generating a starter Next.js app, configuring JWT templates, and activating a Convex deployment with built-in data, functions, and logs. You’ll see practical steps like setting up Clerk for sign-in, ensuring a users table exists in Convex, and validating the local dev server at localhost:3000. Throughout, the narration emphasizes speed and cost, noting the model’s apparent capabilities and comparing it to other commercial options. The result is a live demonstration that a surprisingly capable SaaS can be prototyped in under an hour with free tooling, with caveats about rate limits and minor integration hiccups. The video closes by acknowledging ongoing refinements and optimistic predictions about open-model viability in modern app development.

Key Takeaways

  • Qwen 3.6+ is positioned as a fast, capable model, with the creator highlighting its strong performance and low cost during the build process.
  • OpenCode is demonstrated as a flexible environment to deploy a Next.js app, configure Clerk authentication, and wire Convex AI without paid tooling.
  • Clerk setup includes a JWT issuer/domain workflow and a simple dashboard redirect after login, enabling practical user flows in the local app.
  • Convex deployment is shown as an all-in-one data, functions, and logs solution, with real-time schema changes (e.g., users and edits tables) reflecting in the UI.
  • The build emphasizes a zero-cost baseline for prototyping a SaaS, while noting rate limits and minor setup quirks that may require manual overrides.
  • The creator contrasts open models with paid equivalents like Claude and Opus 4.6, arguing for freedom and cost efficiency in long‑term tooling choices.
  • Significant time saved is claimed (minutes to tens of minutes) for creating a functional app, suggesting a strong potential for rapid prototyping using free AI+open-source stacks.

Who Is This For?

Developers and startup builders curious about “free-first” AI tooling for rapid SaaS prototyping. It’s especially useful for those exploring open-source models, Clerk-based auth, and Convex as a backend stack.

Notable Quotes

"Look at this guys. Quen 3.6 plus is already number 11 in academia, number 10 in finance and all of these others as well."
The host evangelizes Qwen 3.6+ and establishes credibility for using the model in the demo.
"So what I wanted to see today is is it possible to make an entire SAS application using just a free AI inside a free provider being open code."
Core premise of the video: building a full SaaS with free tools.
"This is a really good update from Convex actually because we should be able to now activate a convex skill, right?"
Highlighting a new Convex feature that enables easier capabilities within the stack.
"Look at that. Bang. It actually works. It removed the background."
Shows a successful UI operation and a concrete capability (image background removal) in the app.
"This wasn’t possible until pretty much now. Like, this is brand new."
Emphasizes the novelty and timeliness of achieving a fully free-stack SaaS prototype.

Questions This Video Answers

  • How can I build a SaaS app for free using OpenCode and Convex AI with Clerk?
  • What are the steps to set up JWT with Clerk in a Next.js project for a free prototype?
  • Can Convex AI replace traditional backend services in a free open-source stack?
  • What are the current limits when prototyping with free AI models like Qwen 3.6+?
  • Is it feasible to deploy a complete SaaS frontend and backend using only free tooling?
OpenCodeQwen 3.6+Convex AIClerkNext.jsJWTOpen-source AISaaS prototypingFrontend-backend integrationOpen-source tooling
Full Transcript
Look at this guys. Quen 3.6 plus is already number 11 in academia, number 10 in finance and all of these others as well. People are loving this model and I have to say guys I also really really like this model. So what I wanted to see today is is it possible to make an entire SAS application using just a free AI inside a free provider being open code. Let's jump into things and see how this goes. So, if you don't know guys, open code is probably one of the best ways to build as of today, except of course claude code, but open code is better because well, not better, but at least you can use your own models, etc. So, let's just go Quen 3.6 plus. So, it's this one here or it's this one here. Let's go with this one. And we've now selected the model. So before we do anything, let's just go on Google and type convex start or quick start let's say and we'll click here and we'll go next.js and we'll press copy here and we'll just quit out of this and we'll just press enter. So what this is going to do is it's going to create a new application with Nex.js using Clerk and that's going to start installing. While that's installing, I'm just going to go to clerk.com as well. We're going to go to sign in. And once we're signed in, then you just want to click here, create application. We'll call this quen free test, and then create application. Just like that. Now, this video isn't to show you guys how to make like a good AI SAS. So, the idea is just going to be something very, very simple. I just want to see how good this model is at following these instructions, right? So once you get to this part, you want to go on configure right here and you just want to write JWT and click JWT and then add new template and then call this convex. Has to be lowercase just so you know and then select convex right here and then press save right there. So from here we're pretty much ready to go. This tells you what to do next. So we have to do cd my app and then mpm rundev. And then this will start the convex application. So create a new one. Let's call this uh Quen free test. This is one of my favorite models right now, guys. I do have to say. Um I'm really really impressed with this model. So, what this does now is Oh, this is new. Set up Convex AI files. Yes. Okay. Beautiful. This is a really good update from Convex actually because we should be able to now activate a convex skill, right? So, what this does is it starts the convex deployment. This is your convex deployment. So you have data here which is your database obviously then you have functions here which basically are just all of the functions right so like the edge functions they'll be called in superbase the files where you store files schedules which is chrome jobs and then logs where you can watch the I think server pretty sure they're server logs and then you've got history and settings right here as well so this is how convex works is everything rolled into one and the nextjs website that we've created is actually just a static IC next.js generation of a website. Right? So with all of that in mind, let's just write open code right here. And then I'm actually going to try something new, which is I'm going to write skills. And we're just going to see if there is a new skill for convex. There they are. Interesting. So convex quick start uh convex migration setup or create component. Okay. So there are a few here. Initializes new comments from scratch or. Okay. So, we'll do that. Sure. And then what we're going to do is we're just going to say, can you set up uh or with clerk inside this project, right? Um I will do the MV, but just give me the placeholder M variables that need to be set. Right? And then we'll hit enter here. So, what this will do is it will start setting this up for me. Let's just have a quick read through this. Okay. So this looks like it's again still very very fast I have to say. Uh this is a little bit worrying. So it's getting rate limited. Okay. Interesting. Please retry your add your own key to accumulate your rate limits. Open router settings integrations. Okay. That's a little bit of a shame. That means this is going to take a little bit longer than normal, but that's okay. It does go very very fast. I have to say this is an extremely fast model. So while this is working, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go on anti-gravity, which is my IDE of choice. um IDE being interactive development environment I believe. So we'll just open this up. Go here. Go to open folder and click on free SAS and then open it. So basically the reason I'm doing this is so we can keep an eye on things. So let's go to the m.local. There we go. So we can see what's actually going on here. This is going to start filling things out for me. But I can already just go for example to clerk, go on overview and just press copy here, right? and just press enter and then copy that in. And then there's another one which is I believe JWT signing domain or something. I'll I'll work it out in a second. I'm not actually sure what it is. But if we go back on configure and write JWT again right here and then click on this, it's this right here. There we go. It's JWT. I think it's domain issuer, but I'm not actually 100% sure. And then we'll save that. Right. And then that's all you have to do in terms of things you have to do yourself. And then this should do the rest of things for us. So I'm just going to pause the video quickly and we'll see how this goes. Yeah, there it is. Clerk JWT JWT issue domain. Right. So we have to copy this. There we go. And then just paste it like that. There we go. With a C. Okay. Beautiful. Okay. So now that's going to continue doing everything. Oh, there's another thing we actually have to do. Uh we have to run this command. So let's just copy this and go to shell new tab and then just run that. There we go. J clerk JWT issuer domain has now been set. We can now open another one of these. And then on the side here, what we want to do is we just want to run mpm rundev. And then we can see if this is actually working because it does say it's done already, which was extremely fast. So let's actually see if it's been set up. So, this should be localhost 3000. If I press enter, this should just work. We should see 200s here. Beautiful. And then we go sign in. Sign in with Google. Select my account. Continue. Let's see what happens here. So, you want to be watching here at all times just to actually see what happens. Verify you are human. Okay. I don't I'm pretty sure an AI could also do that, but that's fine. Okay. So, I don't know why, but Safari has this weird thing where it gets stuck in like a handshake. I really don't know what the hell is going on. Only seems to happen on local host as well. Okay, beautiful. So, uh Oh, no, that didn't work. There was a problem. So, let's see here. Um, wait. Okay, so I'm signed in, but it doesn't say that I'm signed in. Here we go. Uh, so there's an issue here. So, I signed in, but I'm not signed in. I am in the top right, but I don't see the slash dashboard or the numbers. Uh, please uncomment the provider and set the domain for me. I'm guessing it's this thing here that I just saw. It says that I need to uncomment the provider. Yeah. So, no orth provider found the clerk issue domain from the logs. Is this I need to uncomment the provider. There we go. Beautiful. That's what was missing, I would guess. Let's see if I can sign out. I already set that, but that's fine. It doesn't know that. So, let's do sign in here. Sign in. Okay, there we go. Beautiful. Now, we can see this. So, now put the numbers thing at /dashboard. So, and make the user redirect to slash dashboard on login. Okay, beautiful. So now from here we actually need, you know, some kind of AI integration. What I like to do is I just like to go to AI Studio for this because it's just easier. Okay. So I'm just going to use this example. This is just a random Google AI studio project that I had running before. Uh basically it's just a image editor. Like I said at the beginning of the video, this isn't that important like this stage of things, right? This is just uh an example. So let's just download this. Oh god, I thought they had removed the download code button. That would have been well annoying. So the download code button is now in the code. That's fine. Right now, please implement this as the / dashboard behind the sign in and the homepage as it's designed here. This is a fairly easy task. Do not use the oorthth in the code, but use clerk as we've already set it up. Also one more thing I need to check actually just quickly. Is this making it? No. Okay. So it's not. So this is a big issue that happens quite a lot. Also make sure that a user is actually created in convex. When they sign up I can see that there's no user table. This is even Opus 4.6 does this right? So it's not really an issue necessarily with Quen. But if I go on data here you would expect there to be a user table, right? Because obviously um it's a database. So, you need a users table. That's just how it works. There's no users table, which is a big problem. So, that's just going to quickly um quickly do that. Actually, I just realized I forgot to give it the code. So, ignore that. So, let's just go here. Beautiful thumbnail. Sorry, I forgot to give you the code. Okay, so a few points just in the middle of this build. We've only used 4% and 39,000 tokens, which is crazy. The cost is zero, obviously, because the model itself is currently free, which is also completely crazy if you think about it. And so far, this is building pretty well, I have to say. So, I'm pretty excited to see if we can build this entire thing just using a free AI and open code. Okay, I have to say its ability to like do a lot of analysis and then still remember that I asked it to add the users table to the schema. That seems as good as something like Opus 4.6. Now, obviously, the reason everyone talks about being as good as Opus 4.6 is because Opus 4.6 is by far the best model on the market right now. And anybody that says that anything is even close is probably trying to sell you something or probably trying to mainly sell you something, right? There's nothing even close. Maybe GPT 5.4, maybe Codeex is, you know, on the edge of being almost as good as Claude Code plus Opus 4.6, right? But a Chinese model with a million context and honestly is starting to get as good as you know even Opus 4.5 for example that's when things start to get super super interesting for me anyway because I don't really want to just be using anthropic constantly I don't want to be using claude code constantly we pay them maybe a th000 to 3,000 every single month right which obviously I don't want to do that so if there is a model if I could use open code instead I would use it. It's not like I'm stubborn. It's not like I'm Anthropic's fanboy or anything like that. Although I do like Anthropic. Um, not as a company, but I like their models, right? But if there's something that can come along and do as well as them, I'm all for it. So, yeah, like I said, it's ability to like I told it this quite a while ago, like I need users. Uh, so I told it it here and it was a secondary thing as well. Even Claude would sometimes forget this, right? also make sure that a user is actually created in convex. It did all this research, all this research, all this research and then right here a user t a user table needs to be created in convex. So users are actually stored when they sign up via clerk. I have to say that is impressive, right? I just I have to be honest and say that is actually impressive, right? So let's just run this. If I do npm rundev now, what should happen is we should see new schema here and we should actually see okay so there's typescript error that's fine. Okay. So now when we go to data, you can see numbers has been created, edits has been created, right? So obviously we're making an image editor. So there has to be an edits table, right? Makes sense. So it's starting to really come together nicely, actually. Okay, so this is looking pretty good. Uh there's a couple of problems with colors and things, so that's fine. It's not it's not actually finished yet. So let's just go sign in. Okay, we're now signed in. Uh, let's go to slash dashboard. Okay, so this hasn't been finished just yet. Okay, so it looks like this is all working, which is pretty crazy to be honest with you. This is a completely free building process, guys. This wasn't possible until pretty much now. Like, this is brand new. Um, yeah, you you would not have been able to build something like this completely for free. Look at that. Bang. It actually works. It removed the background. Now, obviously, there's a few errors here, like the colors are off. Uh, in certain cases, it's using this gray, which I don't know where it got that from. But overall, this is impressive stuff, guys. I have to say this was 15, 20, 35 minutes, 30 minutes, 35 minutes, something like that to build an entire SAS application with database or payments would be fairly easy to add as well. Like, I haven't added it, but all you have to do is just get Stripe running locally. Make sure it's all connected. Do the web hooks and you're ready to go. Guys, I'm gonna leave the the video there. Thank you so much for watching. If you are watching all the way to the end of the video, you're an absolute legend. And I'll see you very, very soon with some more content. Peace out.

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