Story
Excessive token usage in Claude Code
1 report
1 website
1 discussion
Latest report
Overview
Claude Code version 2.1.1 exhibits excessive token usage, consuming tokens at a rate more than four times faster than previous versions. This issue has been reported specifically on Linux platforms.
Summary from github.com.
Reports
One report so far. Additional coverage will appear here when it is linked to this story.
Community reactions
Each reaction summarizes sampled comments from the linked discussion.
Hacker News · github.com
Hacker News discussion ↗
Historical count: 5 · 5 saved in sample · Historical sample
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Read this discussion’s reaction
Based on 5 sampled comments from this thread. Analyzed 2026-02-21.
- Praise: Professionals appreciate Claude's ability to spawn multiple subagents, as it enhances results despite higher token usage, indicating a strong preference for performance over cost.
- Praise: Users of Opus 4.6 report stable usage numbers, suggesting that the model maintains consistent performance for agentic programming tasks.
- Concern: The recent VS Code extension update has degraded user experience, causing agents to become unresponsive and breaking workflow, which highlights potential issues with reliability.
- Concern: Many users express frustration over excessive token usage and limits, feeling that the model's behavior has become predatory, especially for those on lower-cost plans.
- Concern: A user has completely stopped using Claude due to degraded quality and has found alternatives like Codex that better meet their needs, indicating a significant loss of trust.