Best AI tools for developers
The right AI coding tool depends on your workflow: editor-native agents for deep refactors, IDE plugins for autocomplete, and terminal or cloud agents for hands-off tasks. Most developers pair one editor-based tool with a lightweight completion assistant.
Top AI tools for developers
An AI-native code editor (VS Code fork) whose parallel agents can rework a whole project in one pass — a default pick for daily development.
Anthropic's official terminal coding agent, great at large-codebase refactors.
GitHub's official AI coding assistant with the most polished IDE integration; moved to usage-based billing in June 2026.
Formerly Windsurf - renamed Devin Desktop in 2026, Cognition's AI IDE and agent command center.
Chaitin's open-source, enterprise-grade AI coding platform: 30M free model tokens daily, a forever-free cloud dev environment, self-hostable with multi-model support.
OpenAI's coding agent (CLI + cloud) with parallel tasks, built on the GPT-5 series.
An open-source autonomous coding agent inside VS Code that reads/writes files and runs commands.
Google's open-source terminal AI agent with a generous free tier and direct Gemini access.
FAQ
What are the best AI tools for developers?
Our top picks for developers are Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf (Devin Desktop), MonkeyCode, v0, Codex, Cline, Gemini CLI, ranked by our editorial rating.
Are there free AI tools for developers?
Yes — tools such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf (Devin Desktop), MonkeyCode, v0, Cline, Gemini CLI offer a free tier you can start with today.