Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration

Posted by speckx 1 day ago

Getting a Gemini API key is an exercise in frustration(ankursethi.com)

819 points | 322 commentspage 8

nkotov 1 day ago|

I had a similar experience with GCP / Google Workspace. It's just bad experience.

binarymax 1 day ago||

The same billing experience applies to the Google programmable search api. Easy to get a key, but a Byzantine maze to pay for more than the free version.

robertheadley 1 day ago||

I had issues too, I wanted to use my free Google API credits with Roo Code, but I could never get it to work. I eventually got Gemini Cli and now Antigravity to work.

magictux 1 day ago||

ahah I'm really vibing with this post, I went through the same idea as the OP - wanted to try gemini 3 and/or nano banana - and as soon as I was thrown into the billing management panel of Google Cloud and their whole linking process I bailed.

erdemo 1 day ago||

I am glad to see someone write about this, google API dashboards are ... crap.

twsted 1 day ago||

Same for me. Tried just a few days ago and, frustrated, gave up.

dsmurrell 1 day ago||

I avoid using Google because their cloud service product is so badly designed.

homakov 1 day ago||

i wasted an hour setting up a key. Antigravity rejected me even though my VPN was set to New York.

Nowhere close to claude/codex experience. Unusable dev experience

butterlesstoast 1 day ago||

Similar experience for our business

athrowaway3z 1 day ago|

I didn't even need to read the article to upvote, and doing so just confirmed my assumption that somebody finally wrote down their frustration with Gemini.

My fucking god, how has Google not flagged the failure of onboarding devs like Claude / Codex?

3 days ago I was literally thinking, I want to throw 20$ to try out Gemini alongside my Claude and Codex subs.

It took me a few minutes to realize its just not worth my time to figure out how.

mox1 1 day ago|

I wanted to try Googles Image generation models, to compliment my Claude API sub.

Holy Crap, I got about 45 minutes into setting up billing and just gave up and un-did everything.

Hint: If you want to put a spending Limit on your google cloud account, its not trivial.

I will say that Stability AI is similar to Claude, they will just let you buy credits and hit an API.

madiele 1 day ago||

Had the same problem, wanted to use gemini but wanted to setup a speeding limit, turns out Google would prefer you to risk bankruptcy for a mistake, no spending limit available from what I understood, ended up going with openrouter and using gemini through them instead

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