DEV Community

Cover image for Test Drive Before You Buy: Your Guide to AI Code Assistant Trials in 2025

Test Drive Before You Buy: Your Guide to AI Code Assistant Trials in 2025

BekahHW on June 23, 2025

In my last post, I talked about spending time this summer looking at different AI tools. I want to get hands-on, figure out what I want to integrat...
Collapse
 
derekcheng profile image
Derek Cheng

@bekahhw if you have the time, I'd love to get your feedback on Tonkotsu. It's not an IDE/code editor the way those other products are, but tries to position you in the role of a "tech lead for agents".

Collapse
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

First of all, love the branding. I'll try to make some time to check it out. Sounds really cool.

Collapse
 
lambersonistaken profile image
Ismail Emir Lambacioglu

Hi Derek, I am wondering how it's work ?

Collapse
 
derekcheng profile image
Derek Cheng

It helps you do technical planning -- make key technical decisions, break things down into granular tasks -- and from there, delegate those tasks to Tonkotsu. Though the easiest way to tell is to try it :)

Collapse
 
lambersonistaken profile image
Ismail Emir Lambacioglu

Thanks, it was great read. All of these tools are powerful but I think the missing part that they have in common is getting the context part. They usually fall into hallucination and lost their context. I think tools like Stash can help with them.

Collapse
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

I've been working with cognee, who's doing some really great stuff with the AI memory layer. We also have a r/AIMemory. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts there too.

Collapse
 
lambersonistaken profile image
Ismail Emir Lambacioglu

Oh, I see. I know about Cognee, I saw and supported their Product Hunt launch couple months ago, they are also doing great stuff. Alright, I will take a look at r/AIMemory, thanks!

Collapse
 
nevodavid profile image
Nevo David

Pretty cool, feels good seeing someone actually get hands-on like this instead of just chasing whatever sounds hottest right now. Real testing over the hype anytime.

Collapse
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

It's a never-ending chase. And one will be better than the next for a couple of weeks and then an update is shipped and that's better than the other. I'm ready to commit. lol

Collapse
 
nathan_tarbert profile image
Nathan Tarbert

I've enjoyed all of the research you've put into this project, it adds up. The part about pushing these assistants until they break is exactly how I test stuff too

Collapse
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

I started actual testing yesterday and I'm definitely having a good time. Also, it's wild how much time it's saving me. I've used chatGPT and claude to ask questions and that's sped up my workflow so much, but being able to chat in VS Code and do a couple of clicks to add new files is a game changer.

Collapse
 
dotallio profile image
Dotallio

Love the practical trial checklist - I've been running full projects through Windsurf lately and curious what others find works best on bigger codebases. Has anyone stress-tested Continue with a legacy repo yet?

Collapse
 
bdougieyo profile image
Brian Douglas

Hey Continue employee here. Continue's @ codebase system runs entirely locally, so it's limited by the compute available on your machine, which might make not be a good fit for large, legacy codebases. That said, it's customizability allows you to plug in tools like greptile.com/docs/quickstart or even your own remote, custom context engine: docs.continue.dev/customize/tutori...

Using Agent mode with high quality rules to let the model explore legacy codebases also might be a better approach, which generally works the same across Continue, Claude Code, Windsurf, etc. Many folks are moving away from RAG for code agents:
pashpashpash.substack.com/p/why-i-...

Collapse
 
kris_chou_5f6deb607e8cb75 profile image
Kris Chou

@bekahhw How about using Anthropic's Claude for code generation?

Collapse
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

So yesterday, I used Continue's VS Code extension with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and it worked really great. I really liked being able to add rules for my project.

Collapse
 
kris_chou_5f6deb607e8cb75 profile image
Kris Chou

I tried Cursor and Claude 4 and it seems like Claude is working better.

Thread Thread
 
bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

I tried Continue last night and really liked the experience. GH CoPilot is next, then Cursor.

Collapse
 
gianna_scarlett_55d648db5 profile image
Gianna Scarlett

There are a lot of untrue recommendations and impostors, its hard to tell who is legit. If you have been scammed by fake crypto investors, lost money to scammers, I refer you to contact (RECOVERY SCAM CRYPTO @ Gmaℹ️l .com/ WhatsApp ‪ ‪+1 (603) 702‑4335) they will surely help you out. Took me long to find them.