IDES & CODING TOOLS · 60 REVIEWED
The Best AI Coding Tools and IDEs (2026)
Editors, terminal agents and review bots that write, refactor and debug alongside you. The useful split is no longer autocomplete versus chat — it is how much of a task the tool can finish without you, and how well it behaves when it is wrong.
Ranked by hand · 36 with a free tier · updated 2026-08-04
CATEGORY SNAPSHOT
TOP 10 COMPARED
| Tool | SWE-bench Verified | Pricing | API | Open weights | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Antigravity 2.0 | — | Freemium | No | No | Google-Native Agents |
| Claude Opus 5 | — | Freemium | Yes | No | Best Frontier Model Overall |
| GPT-5.6 Sol | — | Paid | No | No | Professional-Grade Reasoning |
| Cursor 2.0 | 51.7% | Freemium | No | No | AI Coding |
| OpenAI Codex | — | Paid | Yes | No | Code Generation |
| Kimi K3 | — | Freemium | Yes | Yes | Open-Weight Frontier Performance |
| Claude Code | 88.6% | Paid | No | No | Terminal Development |
| Claude Opus 4.8 | 88.6% | Enterprise | No | No | Enterprise Reasoning |
| Lovable.dev | — | Freemium | No | No | Rapid Prototyping |
| Grok 4.5 | — | Paid | No | No | Long-Running Coding Agents |
Scores from SWE-bench Verified, as of 2026-07-01. A dash means no published score for this tool.
ALL 60 AI CODING TOOLS
Standalone agent-first platform with CLI, SDK, and managed agents
AI-powered IDE built as a fork of Visual Studio Code, designed with an 'agent-first' paradigm where autonomous AI agents plan, execute, and validate code
Why: Antigravity 2.0 is Google's most credible bid for the agentic IDE seat. The new CLI and SDK make it competitive with Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex for terminal-first and automation workflows.
Freemium
Best for Google-Native Agents
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Anthropic's frontier model, currently first on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Claude Opus 5 is Anthropic's flagship model, released 24 July 2026 with a 1M-token context window and five selectable effort levels (low, medium, high, xhigh, max)
Why: It is the current number one on the independent Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, and it got there while costing less per task than the model it displaced: $2.03 average per index task against Fable 5's $2.75. The effort dial is the reason to pick it over a fixed-tier model, because one integration covers cheap high-volume calls and expensive long-horizon agent runs.
Freemium
Best Frontier Model Overall
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OpenAI's top-tier model for complex professional work
GPT-5
Why: Sol ranks third overall on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index at 58.9, behind Claude Opus 5 and Claude Fable 5, a genuine top-tier frontier model rather than an incremental update, and OpenAI's clear flagship pick for the hardest professional-grade tasks.
Paid
Best for Professional-Grade Reasoning
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The AI-native IDE that redefined software engineering
Cursor is a fork of VS Code built specifically for AI-pair programming
Why: Cursor is a special coding tool that actually 'reads' your entire folder of files. Imagine having a partner who remembers every single line of code you've ever written and can tell you exactly where a bug is hiding. It's the top choice for developers because it makes building apps 10 times faster by doing the boring 'search and find' work for you.
Freemium
Best for AI Coding
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AI system that translates natural language into code
AI system developed by OpenAI that translates natural language prompts into code across multiple programming languages
Why: Foundation technology powering GitHub Copilot and enabling natural language to code translation.
Paid
Best for Code Generation
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Moonshot AI's 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight flagship
Kimi K3 is Moonshot AI's open-weight model released July 16, 2026, built at roughly 2
Why: Kimi K3 is one of the most credible open-weight challengers to closed frontier models this year, aggressive enough on pricing and scale that it moved markets, Fortune covered it as a 'DeepSeek shock' moment for AI stocks.
Freemium
Best for Open-Weight Frontier Performance
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Terminal-based AI coding assistant for agentic development
Command-line AI coding assistant developed by Anthropic, designed for agentic coding workflows
Why: Unique terminal-based approach enabling direct AI coding assistance in command-line workflows.
Paid
Best for Terminal Development
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Anthropic's powerful enterprise model from May 2026
Claude Opus 4
Why: Claude Opus 4.8 continues Anthropic's reputation for reliable, steerable models. It is a top choice for enterprises that need a capable assistant with strong safety characteristics and nuanced writing.
Enterprise
Best for Enterprise Reasoning
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AI-powered full-stack development platform
AI-powered platform that enables users to build full-stack applications using natural language descriptions
Why: Best platform for non-technical users to build full-stack applications through natural language.
Freemium
Best for Rapid Prototyping
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xAI's flagship coding model, trained in partnership with Cursor
Grok 4
Why: xAI positions it as its flagship 'for code and everything else,' and real benchmark data backs that up, 53.8% on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (rank 7 overall). The Cursor training partnership is a distinctive angle: it's specifically tuned for long-horizon, multi-repository coding agent work, not just general chat.
Paid
Best for Long-Running Coding Agents
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AI pair programmer for your IDE
AI-powered code completion tool developed by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI
Why: Most widely adopted AI code completion tool with excellent IDE integration.
Enterprise
Best for Code Completion
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Anthropic's cheaper, near-Opus everyday model
Claude Sonnet 5 is Anthropic's mid-tier model released June 30, 2026, replacing Sonnet 4
Why: Sonnet 5 is the practical default for most day-to-day work: it closes much of the gap to Opus-tier performance while staying meaningfully cheaper, and Anthropic made it the automatic replacement for Sonnet 4.6 across the free and Pro tiers.
Freemium
Best for Everyday Agentic Work
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Cloud-based online IDE for web development
Cloud-based online IDE focused on web application development
Why: Best cloud IDE for web development with instant setup and collaboration.
Freemium
Best for Web Development
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Online IDE by Google with AI assistance
Online IDE developed by Google, based on Visual Studio Code and running on Google Cloud infrastructure
Why: Best cloud IDE for Google Cloud development with integrated AI and Android emulation.
Freemium
Best for Google Cloud
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AI code generator with AWS integration
AI-powered code generator developed by AWS (formerly CodeWhisperer)
Why: Best AI coding assistant for AWS development with deep cloud service integration.
Enterprise
Best for AWS Development
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Open-Source Coding Agents for Private, Fine-Tuned Development
SERA is a family of open-source coding agents developed by the Allen Institute for AI (AI2)
Why: We added SERA because it is the leading open-source alternative for privacy-conscious developers. It empowers teams to build their own custom coding assistants that understand their specific architectural patterns.
Free
Best for Developers
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Cursor's agentic coding model for multi-file software engineering
Cursor Composer 2
Why: Composer 2.5 moves Cursor further from autocomplete toward genuine pair-programming autonomy. For teams already using Cursor, it is the most integrated way to turn high-level feature requests into working code across many files.
Paid
Best for IDE Autonomy
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Open-source, model-agnostic terminal coding agent
OpenCode is an open-source terminal-based coding agent that connects to multiple language models and performs autonomous software engineering tasks from the command line
Why: OpenCode is the best 'bring-your-own-model' coding agent for developers who want full control. Because it is open source and runs in the terminal, it fits naturally into existing CI/CD and shell-centric workflows without locking you into a specific vendor.
Free
Best for Terminal Coding
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xAI's agentic coding CLI for autonomous software engineering
Grok Build is an agentic command-line coding assistant from xAI that understands natural-language project descriptions, generates and edits code across files, runs commands, and iterates until tasks a...
Why: Grok Build brings xAI's frontier reasoning directly into the terminal, making it a strong alternative to other agentic coding CLIs. It is particularly useful for developers already embedded in the X and xAI ecosystem who want a fast, opinionated agent.
Freemium
Best for Agentic CLI
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Mistral's unified work and coding agent
Mistral Vibe is Mistral's unified agent for work and coding, rebranded from Le Chat and launched on May 28, 2026
Why: Mistral Vibe brings Mistral's strong European model lineage into a competitive all-in-one agent. It is a good choice for users who want a privacy-conscious alternative to US-centric assistants with solid coding skills.
Freemium
Best for European AI Assistant
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The ceiling of enterprise autonomy with 1M context
Anthropic's most powerful model, designed for autonomous software engineering and complex reasoning
Why: Claude Opus 4.6 is like a super-smart digital architect. While most AI can only write short snippets, Opus can 'see' your entire project (up to 1 million words) at once. It doesn't just help you code; it can actually build complex software systems from scratch, making it the best choice for big companies that need an AI 'teammate' rather than just a chatbot.
Enterprise
Best for Autonomy
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DeepSeek's open-weight model with permanent pricing
DeepSeek V4-Pro is a high-performance language model from DeepSeek
Why: DeepSeek V4-Pro stands out for combining frontier-level performance with transparent, permanent pricing and open weights. It is a practical choice for teams that want to self-host or avoid unpredictable API costs.
Freemium
Best for Predictable Pricing
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Moonshot's specialized coding model
Kimi K2
Why: Kimi K2.7-Code is one of the strongest coding models from a Chinese AI lab, with particular strength in long-context understanding and bilingual code tasks. It is a good addition for teams evaluating global coding models.
Freemium
Best for Bilingual Coding
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80B parameter open-weight coding powerhouse
Alibaba's latest open-weight model specialized for coding
Why: Qwen3-Coder-Next is the best 'Private Brain' for coders. Most AI tools send your secret code to the internet, but this one can live entirely on your own computer. It's just as smart as the big paid tools, but it keeps your work 100% private and safe.
Free
Best for Open Coding
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The first research stack built entirely by AI agents
An open-source research stack spanning Python, JS, C++, and CUDA, engineered from the ground up by autonomous AI coding agents
Why: A glimpse into the future of engineering. It's the first major technical stack where the AI wasn't just a helper, but the lead architect and builder.
Free
Best for AI Research
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The industry standard for coding and nuanced instruction following
Anthropic's flagship model, optimized for high-speed coding and perfect adherence to complex XML-based system prompts
Why: Claude 4.6 Sonnet is the 'Perfect Student' for following directions. It is famous for doing exactly what you ask without getting confused. It also has a special 'Computer Use' feature where it can actually move the mouse and type on your screen to do chores for you.
Paid
Best for Coding
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The first agentic IDE with Flow-state intelligence
Codeium's Windsurf is an agentic IDE that features 'Flow', a system where the AI and developer work in a continuous, shared context
Why: Windsurf is like a 'Mind-Reading Partner' for coders. It uses a special 'Flow' mode where it stays perfectly in sync with what you're doing. It doesn't just suggest code; it actually understands the 'why' behind your work and helps you fix big problems automatically.
Freemium
Best for Agentic Flow
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Generative UI for React, Tailwind, and Shadcn UI
Vercel's v0
Why: v0.dev is like a 'Magic Sketchbook' for websites. You just describe what you want your site to look like, and it draws it and writes the code instantly. It's the fastest way in the world to go from a simple idea to a beautiful, working website.
Freemium
Best for Gen-UI
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Full-stack web applications in the browser
Bolt
Why: Bolt.new is like an 'App Factory' in your browser. You don't need to install anything on your computer; you just tell it what app you want to build, and it builds it, runs it, and puts it on the internet for you in seconds.
Freemium
Best for MVPs
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The autonomous agent for full-stack deployment
Replit Agent is an autonomous AI that can build and deploy entire applications from scratch
Why: Replit Agent is the 'Ultimate Builder' for people who don't know how to code. You can just talk to it like a human, and it will build your entire app, set up the database, and launch it for you. It's like having a professional developer in your pocket.
Paid
Best for Autonomy
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Alibaba's open-source MoE flagship with thinking modes
Qwen 3 is a 2025 open-weight Mixture-of-Experts model family from Alibaba Cloud, ranging from 0
Free
Best for Open-Source Agents
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Balanced Sonnet model with major coding and agentic improvements
Anthropic's Sonnet-tier model announced on September 29, 2025, with major coding, instruction-following, and agentic improvements at the same price as Sonnet 4
Why: Sonnet 4.5 brought meaningful coding and agentic upgrades at the same price as Sonnet 4, making it a notable missing mid-tier entry.
Paid
Best for Balanced Coding Agents
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First Claude model with the effort parameter and context compaction
Anthropic's Opus-tier model announced on November 24, 2025, introducing the effort parameter for balancing capability against cost, context compaction, and a deeper memory tool
Why: Opus 4.5 was the first Claude model to ship the effort parameter, an important capability evolution before Opus 4.6 and 4.7.
Enterprise
Best for Cost-Capability Tradeoffs
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Frontier Opus model with higher-resolution vision and xhigh effort
Anthropic's frontier Opus-tier model announced on April 16, 2026, with substantial gains on the hardest coding tasks, higher-resolution vision input, a new xhigh effort level, file-system-based memory...
Why: Opus 4.7 introduced the xhigh effort level and file-system memory recall, making it a notable step between Opus 4.6 and Opus 4.8.
Enterprise
Best for Hard Coding Tasks
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Cursor's first-generation agentic coding model
Cursor Composer 1 is the first-generation agentic model inside the Cursor IDE
Why: Composer 1 introduced the original agentic editing experience inside Cursor that later evolved into the stronger long-context planning of Composer 2.5.
Paid
Best for Agentic Editing
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High-volume DeepSeek inference with a 1M-token context window
DeepSeek V4-Flash is the efficient sibling of V4-Pro, offering a 1M-token context window and configurable thinking modes at a fraction of the API cost
Why: V4-Flash delivers the same 1M context and thinking modes as V4-Pro at roughly one-third the API cost, making it the practical default for most production workloads.
Freemium
Best for High-Volume APIs
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The 128K-context MoE flagship that introduced sparse attention
DeepSeek V3
Why: V3.2 introduced DeepSeek Sparse Attention and unified thinking modes, making it the architectural bridge that enabled the later 1M-context V4 family.
Freemium
Best for Long-Context MoE
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744B-parameter open-weight MoE flagship for agentic planning and execution
GLM-5 is Zhipu AI's (Z
Why: GLM-5 anchors the open-weight GLM line as a commercially-usable Chinese flagship with a permissive license and a strong reasoning profile.
Paid
Best for Open-Weight Frontier
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MIT-licensed MoE flagship for 8-hour autonomous coding sessions
GLM-5
Why: GLM-5.1 is the open-weight coding release that made Z.ai competitive on long-horizon agentic work while remaining MIT-licensed for unrestricted commercial use.
Paid
Best for Long-Horizon Coding
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Optimized GLM-5 variant for fast sequential task execution
GLM-5-Turbo is a tuned variant of the GLM-5 series that prioritizes lower latency and efficient sequential execution
Why: GLM-5-Turbo is the practical speed layer for the GLM-5 family, trading a small amount of peak capability for noticeably faster multi-step agent execution.
Paid
Best for Fast Sequential Tasks
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Mid-range coding and tool-calling model with 200K context
GLM-4
Why: GLM-4.6 gives developers a capable, lower-cost GLM option for coding and tool-calling agents without sacrificing the long context window.
Paid
Best for Coding & Tool Calls
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Cost-efficient reasoning, coding, and agent model
GLM-4
Why: GLM-4.5-Air extends the GLM-4.5 family downward with a low-cost model that still handles coding, reasoning, and agent tasks.
Paid
Best for Budget Reasoning
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Google's high-performance reasoning model with advanced coding
Gemini 2
Freemium
Best for Complex Reasoning
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OpenAI's balanced GPT-5.6 model for intelligence and cost
GPT-5
Why: Terra is the sensible default for most GPT-5.6 work: it delivers the lion's share of Sol's capability at roughly 40% of the cost and is the default model for ChatGPT Free and Go users.
Freemium
Best for Balanced Cost and Capability
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xAI's fast, cheap coding specialist model
Grok Code Fast 1 is a lightweight coding-focused model from xAI with a 256K context window
Why: Grok Code Fast 1 is the practical, low-cost coding specialist in xAI's family for developers who want Grok reasoning without flagship pricing.
Paid
Best for Fast Coding Assistance
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Tencent's latest open-source MoE flagship with tool use
Open-weight preview of Hunyuan 3 (Hy3), a 295B-parameter MoE model with 21B active parameters and a 262K context window
Why: Tencent's strongest open-source Hunyuan model to date, with competitive coding and agentic benchmarks.
Freemium
Best for Coding and Agents
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Moonshot's open-weight multimodal generalist with agent swarms
Kimi K2
Why: Kimi K2.5 was Moonshot's first widely available open-weight multimodal generalist and remains a notable reference point for the K2 family before K2.6 and K3 arrived.
Freemium
Best for Open Multimodal Agents
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Moonshot's open-weight multimodal successor with long-context coding stability
Kimi K2
Why: Kimi K2.6 improves on K2.5 with stronger long-context coding and is a practical open-weight alternative for teams that want multimodal agents without the cost of closed frontier models.
Freemium
Best for Long-Context Coding
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Faster inference variant of Kimi's coding specialist
Kimi K2
Why: Kimi K2.7 Code Highspeed is the latency-optimized version of an already strong coding model, making it a good pick for interactive coding agents and live pair-programming workflows.
Freemium
Best for Fast Coding
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Recursive self-improvement language model for real-world engineering
MiniMax M2
Why: MiniMax M2.7 is the current production language model below M3 and is explicitly listed as beginning recursive self-improvement, making it a notable addition to the family.
Freemium
Best for Engineering Tasks
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Same M2.7 performance with significantly faster inference
MiniMax M2
Why: The Highspeed variant is a current, actively promoted option for developers who need M2.7 capability with lower latency.
Freemium
Best for Low-Latency Coding
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Mistral's mid-tier workhorse for reasoning, coding, and instruction
A mid-tier model that balances performance and cost, optimized for instruction following, reasoning, and coding
Why: Mistral Medium 3.5 delivers strong performance at a lower cost than the flagship, making it the sensible default for most business and development workloads.
Freemium
Best for Everyday Workloads
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Unified open-source small model for chat, reasoning, vision, and coding
A 119B-parameter MoE model with 6B active parameters and a 256K context window, released under Apache 2
Why: Small 4 packs flagship-class reasoning, vision, and coding into a single open-source model that is efficient enough for high-throughput and local deployments.
Freemium
Best for Efficient Open Multimodal
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Mistral's code-specialist model with fill-in-the-middle support
A code generation model optimized for latency-sensitive fill-in-the-middle completion and chat, supporting 80+ programming languages
Why: Codestral 25.08 improves accepted completions and reduces runaway generations, making it a strong open-weight option for production IDE assistants.
Freemium
Best for IDE Code Completion
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Microsoft's unified AI model family from Build 2026
Microsoft announced a family of MAI-branded models at Build 2026, including MAI-Thinking-1 for reasoning, MAI-Image-2
Why: The MAI family gives Microsoft a cohesive, enterprise-ready AI stack. For organizations already using Microsoft services, these models reduce friction by running inside familiar tools rather than requiring separate platforms.
Enterprise
Best for Microsoft Ecosystem
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Google's faster, sharper agentic-coding upgrade to 3.5 Flash
Gemini 3
Why: Gemini 3.6 Flash is the clearest upgrade path for teams already running high-volume agentic and coding workloads on Flash-tier pricing. It delivers a real benchmark jump over 3.5 Flash without moving up to Ultra-tier cost.
Freemium
Best for Fast Agentic Coding
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Alibaba's 2.4-trillion-parameter flagship, currently in preview
Qwen 3
Why: Qwen 3.8-Max is Alibaba's answer to the current wave of massive open-weight-adjacent models from Chinese labs, and the discounted preview pricing makes it worth evaluating early even before the full release details land.
Paid
Best for Long-Horizon Agentic Work (Preview)
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753B open-weight MoE coding model with a 1M-token context, MIT licensed
GLM-5
Why: The strongest open-weight coding model published to date: 62.1 on SWE-bench Pro against GPT-5.5's 58.6, and 81.0 on Terminal-Bench 2.1, at roughly a sixth of GPT-5.5's API price. The MIT licence carries no regional restrictions, so the weights can genuinely be self-hosted commercially, which is the reason to choose it over a closed model of similar strength.
Freemium
Best Open-Weight Coder
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HOW TO CHOOSE
What actually decides between AI coding tools:
- Autocomplete, chat, or agent: Three different products. Completion speeds up typing, chat speeds up thinking, and an agent takes a task and runs. Agents save the most time and require the most review.
- Which model is underneath: Most of these tools are a harness around someone else's model. Ask which one, whether you can change it, and whether you can bring your own key — it decides both quality and cost.
- How it reads your codebase: On a large repository, retrieval quality matters more than model quality. A tool that indexes well and pulls the right three files beats a stronger model given the wrong ones.
- What it does with your code: Check whether code is retained, trained on, or leaves your machine at all. Zero-retention terms and local execution are available and are usually the deciding factor for work under NDA.
- Review and undo: An agent that edits fifteen files is only usable if you can see and stage each change. Diff review, checkpoints and clean git integration are what make agentic editing safe.
- Cost model: Flat seat pricing is predictable; usage-based pricing tracks the frontier but can surprise you. Agentic runs burn far more tokens than chat, so measure on your real workload.