Three Ways to Use Claude for Coding.
One clear winner.
Before comparing options, it's important to understand what "Claude Code" actually is — because it's not just another model.
Pick a model → Send message → Get a response
A single model receives your message and replies. One request in, one response out. It can call tools if configured, but it's fundamentally one model, one turn at a time.
Not just a model — it's a model + orchestration
Claude Code is an agentic system. It plans, breaks work into sub-tasks, spins up multiple agents, runs tool calls in parallel, reads & writes files, tests code, and loops until the job is done. It's orchestration — not just a model.
The eVA platform leverages the same orchestration engine as Claude Code — so you get the exact same agentic experience: planning, sub-agents, parallel tool calls, self-correction, and autonomous execution. The difference is that eVA connects it to your live business data, your tools, and your team — all in one place. And because the orchestration layer is separated from the model, the same engine works with non-Anthropic models too — GPT, Gemini, or any model you choose.
Your Three Options
Same capabilities listed for each — so you can compare directly.
claude.ai
General-purpose chat. Good for questions, analysis, and quick tasks.
Your system prompt, chat history, and files live only within the Anthropic platform.
claude.ai/code
Dedicated agentic coding UI on the web. Full Claude Code orchestration for your codebase — planning, sub-agents, parallel tool calls, and autonomous execution.
Your system prompt, chat history, and files live only within the Anthropic platform.
Add Claude Team
$25–$125 AUD/user/month (min 5 users)
- + 11 MCP connectors + Microsoft 365 connector
- + Enterprise search via Microsoft 365 — read-only access to your Microsoft business data as a live knowledge base
- + User permissions and usage management
- + Share 'Projects' with your team — but each person's chats remain private, not shared
- + Share chats as 'snapshots' (point-in-time copies) — not real-time group chats
Great if your team is in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
eVA Platform
Full Claude Code power, fully connected to your live data, tools, and knowledge.
Everything is centralised — chats, docs, data, code — on your server.
A note about Connectors / MCP
I can provide a custom MCP server that gives Claude (or Claude Code) direct access to your database (read & write), as well as any LLM tools available on the eVA platform — RAG search, URL scraping, and more. This extends what Options 1 & 2 can do significantly.
Pull-on-demand vs centralised data. Claude's connectors and MCP servers work on a pull-on-demand model — each time the AI needs data from Gmail, HubSpot, Xero, etc., it reaches out to that service in real time. You can wire up 10 connectors, but that is not the same as having all that data synced into a single, centralised database. The eVA approach is centralise-first — your data from every source lives in one open-source Postgres (Supabase) database, always available, always queryable. This is a critical architectural choice: invest in a network of individual connectors tied to the Claude ecosystem, or centralise your data in an open, portable database you own.
Permissions & access control. With connectors / MCP, you have to address access control individually for each connection. Some MCP servers support OAuth for user-level, granular permissions — but many don't, effectively giving every authorised user access to everything that connector can see. If you're comfortable configuring all of this within the Claude ecosystem and living with each connector's limitations, it can work — but it's a per-connector investment with varying levels of control.
What about Claude CoWork?
CoWork is Anthropic's desktop-only productivity tool (macOS & Windows). It uses the same Claude Code orchestration engine under the hood, but it's designed for individual business productivity — controlling your computer, working with your personal files, managing local documents. It's not available on web or mobile, has no GitHub integration, and there's no shared or team functionality. For vibe coding, you're isolated to your own machine with no connection to your business data or team. It's a solid tool for personal productivity, but it's not a platform for your business.
What about Claude Code CLI?
This is the real coder's option. Claude Code CLI is a command-line tool you install on a server or your local machine. You interact with it directly in your terminal — no browser required. It's the most powerful and flexible way to use Claude Code because it has full access to whatever the command-line has access to: executing Python, installing libraries for data analysis, managing git repositories, running tests, spinning up servers — anything the shell can do, Claude Code can do.
Of the three options above, Option 2 (the web UI) is essentially a browser-based wrapper around this CLI. The CLI itself offers more control, more flexibility, and no subscription-tier context limits when running via API.
This is exactly what eVA connects to. The same chat UI you'd use for talking to GPT, Gemini, or any other model becomes a direct interface to Claude Code CLI — without ever touching a terminal. Behind the scenes, eVA pipes your conversation into a managed Claude Code CLI session on your server, so you get both layers of orchestration working together: eVA's orchestration between your chat and your live business data, and Claude Code CLI's own agentic orchestration with sub-agents, parallel tool calls, planning, and autonomous execution. One chat, full power, no command-line required.
✦ What the eVA Platform also gives you
You could sign up your staff for Claude Team at $25–$125 AUD per seat/month.
That gets you 11 MCP connectors and SSO — but you're locked into one vendor, and your data lives on their platform.
Or get all the same functionality — plus multi-model flexibility, full data ownership, and no vendor lock-in — with one platform, for the monthly cost of server hosting.
BYO your existing Claude subscription (Pro, Max, or Team) into eVA for maximum usage at the lowest cost — no API charges. Anthropic's API terms mean your content is never used for model training.
Worth knowing: Claude Code as a "tool" vs as the "model"
Any eVA assistant can call Claude Code to create files, analyse data, research code, do web research, etc. This is because Claude Code is available as a tool to all assistants — it has the orchestration built in.
But for coding, use the vibe coding assistant. It sends your full context and chat history directly to Claude Code as the primary model — just like using any other model, but with the full agentic orchestration. Full context in, full power out.
Remember
If you use the main eVA assistant (not the vibe coder) and it calls Claude Code as a background tool — no context is passed along. Claude Code won't know your schema, your data, or what you're looking at. It's working blind. Always switch to the vibe coding assistant for coding tasks.