GitHub Copilot costs $19/month. OpenAI's API needs a credit card. And if you're outside the US, getting set up with either can be a real headache.
So I built NovAI Coder — a free, open-source Windows app that gives you AI coding assistance through 7 Chinese AI models that rival GPT-4o in quality.
Why Chinese AI Models?
DeepSeek V3.2 scores 90.2% on HumanEval — the exact same as GPT-4o. But it costs $0.14 per million input tokens vs GPT-4o's $2.50. That's 18x cheaper.
The catch? Accessing these models directly requires a Chinese phone number and navigating Chinese-language dashboards. NovAI removes that barrier — sign up with email, get an API key, start coding.
What's Inside
NovAI Coder bundles OpenClaw (an open-source coding agent) with pre-configured access to:
| Model | Cost | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| GLM-4.6V-Flash | FREE | Testing, prototyping |
| Qwen-Turbo | FREE | Quick tasks |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | $0.14/1M | Coding, reasoning |
| Qwen-Plus | $0.20/1M | Multilingual |
| MiniMax-Text-01 | $0.20/1M | 1M context, entire repos |
| GLM-4.6V | $0.40/1M | Vision + text |
| Qwen-Max | $0.40/1M | Creative writing |
Getting Started
- Download from GitHub Releases
- Run the installer (one click)
- Register at aiapi-pro.com (email only, $0.50 free credits)
- Paste API key → start coding
The whole process takes under 2 minutes.
Open Source
MIT license. Full source on GitHub.
If you're tired of Copilot's pricing or can't get an international credit card, give it a try. Feedback and contributions welcome!
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