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The Ultimate Guide: 100+ Best Free AI Coding Agents & Platforms (November 2025)

#aicoding #freetools #developerproductivity #cloudide

Last Updated: November 21, 2025
Verified Status: ✅ All 100+ tools checked for active free tiers.

Let's be real: paying $20/month for every AI tool is unsustainable. You need a coding assistant, a debugger, a web builder, and a data agent. That adds up to $100/month fast.

But here's the secret the SaaS companies don't want you to know: You can get a production-grade AI coding stack for $0.

I have spent the last week testing, verifying, and ranking over 100 AI coding agents and platforms. These aren't just "free trials" that ask for a credit card and charge you after 7 days. These are tools with generous, perpetual free tiers, open-source models, or cloud-based credits that you can rotate for practically unlimited usage.

Whether you're a student, an indie hacker, or just frugal, this is your new bible for free AI coding.

🏆 The "God Tier" (Must-Haves)

If you only use five tools from this list, make it these. They offer the highest value, the best models (Gemini 3 Pro, Claude 3.5, GPT-4o), and the most generous limits.

1. Google Antigravity (Preview)

The New King of Free.
Google's latest agentic IDE is currently in a massive public preview. It gives you access to Gemini 3 Pro, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and GPT-OSS models completely for free.

  • Free Tier: Unlimited usage during preview, with rate limits that refresh every ~5 hours.
  • Why it wins: It's a full cloud IDE that runs on Google's infrastructure. No local GPU needed.
  • Best For: Full-stack development, complex refactoring.

2. Amazon Kiro

The "Hidden Gem" Cloud IDE.
Amazon's answer to Cursor, but fully cloud-native. Kiro offers a surprisingly generous free tier that renews monthly.

  • Free Tier: 50 credits/month (enough for ~2 weeks of heavy use).
  • Bonus: New accounts often get a 30-day trial with 500 bonus credits.
  • Best For: AWS integrations, Python/Node.js projects.

3. Bolt.new

The Best Web Builder.
Bolt allows you to prompt an entire full-stack app into existence in the browser.

  • Free Tier: ~150k-300k daily tokens (resets daily/monthly).
  • Strategy: Great for scaffolding. Once you hit the limit, export the code to a free IDE like Project IDX.
  • Best For: React/Next.js prototypes, landing pages.

4. Firebase Studio (formerly Project IDX)

The "VS Code in the Cloud" Workhorse.
Google has rebranded Project IDX to Firebase Studio (April 2025). It remains a fully functional, cloud-based VS Code environment integrated with Gemini.

  • Free Tier: Free core usage. Up to 5 workspaces.
  • Why it wins: It's basically a high-power Linux machine in your browser with AI baked in.
  • Best For: Flutter, Angular, and Next.js development.

5. Windsurf (formerly Codeium)

The Best Copilot Alternative.
Codeium has rebranded its IDE to Windsurf, while keeping the "Codeium" name for its extensions.

  • Free Tier: Unlimited autocomplete and free chat (Llama 3.1 70B).
  • Why it wins: It's fast, accurate, and doesn't artificially limit you to push you to a paid plan.
  • Best For: VS Code extension, local development.

🐉 The Chinese Titans (New & Powerful)

China's tech giants are releasing massive, free AI models to compete with OpenAI. These are often completely free or have huge limits.

Tool Provider Free Tier Limits Key Features
Tongyi Lingma Alibaba Free Basic Edition Integrated into VS Code. huge context window.
Comate Baidu Free Trial / Quota Great for Python/C++. 500 agent dialogues/month.
MarsCode (Trae) ByteDance Free Beta Extremely fast. "Trae" is the new IDE name.
DeepSeek Coder DeepSeek Open Source Use via OpenRouter or locally. The "GPT-4 Killer".
Cloud Studio Tencent 1000 Points/Month Cloud IDE similar to IDX.
Spark Desk iFlytek Free "Lite" Tier Good for Chinese/English translation & coding.
GLM-4 Zhipu AI Free API (Flash) "GLM-4-Flash" is free via API.
Kimi Moonshot Free Web/App Excellent long-context handling (200k+ tokens).

☁️ Big Tech & Cloud Titans

These companies have deep pockets and are subsidizing your AI usage to win market share. Take advantage of it.

  1. Google AI Studio: Free access to Gemini 1.5 Pro/Flash APIs.
  2. GitHub Copilot: Free for Students & Open Source maintainers.
  3. Amazon Q Developer: 50 agentic requests/month + 1000 lines of code transformation.
  4. Google Cloud Shell: Includes Gemini Code Assist (50 hours/week).
  5. Google Colab: Free T4 GPUs (12-hour sessions).
  6. Kaggle Kernels: 30 hours/week of GPU time.
  7. Lightning AI: 80 GPU hours/month.
  8. Meta Code Llama: Free via Hugging Face / Perplexity.
  9. Grok (xAI): Free credits for developers (beta programs).

🛠️ The "Install In" Collection (Extensions & CLIs)

These tools plug into your existing workflow (VS Code, Terminal, etc.).

VS Code Extensions

  1. Cline: (formerly Claude Dev) Open source, BYOK.
  2. Roo Code: (formerly Ruccord?) Fork of Cline, supports Grok.
  3. Kilocode: Free extension with "Horizon Beta" models.
  4. CodeGPT: Connect any LLM to VS Code.
  5. Continue: Open-source autopilot.
  6. Blackbox AI: Generous free chat.
  7. Bito AI: 20 requests/day.
  8. CodeGeex: Free multilingual coding assistant.
  9. AskCodi: 50 credits/month.
  10. Refact.ai: 2000 free "coins"/month.
  11. CodeMate: Basic free tier.
  12. Machinet: 20 free unit tests.
  13. Adrenaline: 5 boosted answers/day.
  14. Grit.io: Free for migrations.
  15. Ellipsis: Free for public repos.
  16. Mentat: Open source (BYOK).
  17. CodeRabbit: Free for Open Source.
  18. Sweep AI: Free for Open Source.
  19. CodiumAI (Qodo): Free test generation.
  20. Mintlify: Free "Hobby" tier for docs.
  21. Pieces: Local snippet manager.
  22. Tabby: Self-hosted (Free).
  23. Twinny: Local AI (Free).
  24. Sourcery: Free for public repos.

CLIs & Terminals

  1. Warp: 100 free AI requests/month.
  2. Wave Terminal: Open source, AI-native.
  3. Gemini CLI: Free usage (1000 requests/day with personal account).
  4. Copilot CLI: Included with Copilot.
  5. GPT Engineer: CLI tool (BYOK).
  6. Aider: AI pair programmer in terminal (BYOK).
  7. OpenCode: Free interpreter.
  8. Shell GPT: Command line productivity.
  9. Gorilla CLI: API for CLI commands.
  10. Butterfish: Shell wrapper for LLMs.

🌐 Web Builders & Generators

  1. Lovable: 5 daily credits.
  2. V0.dev: Vercel's UI generator (Monthly credits).
  3. Cosmic: Headless CMS with AI.
  4. Glitch: Free Node.js hosting.
  5. StackBlitz: Free for public repos.
  6. CodeSandbox: Free VM credits.
  7. Replit: (Caution: Free tier is restrictive).
  8. Playcode: Javascript playground.
  9. JSFiddle: Basic AI features.
  10. Codepen: AI features in pro (some free trials).

📊 Data Science & Notebook Agents

  1. DeepNote: Free for individuals.
  2. Hex: 100 "Magic" actions/month.
  3. Jupyter AI: Open source extension.
  4. Deno Jupyter: Free kernel.
  5. Anaconda Assistant: Free in cloud notebooks.
  6. DataCamp Workspace: Free AI assistant.
  7. Julius AI: Free trial messages.
  8. Einblick: Free tier for analysis.
  9. Akkio: Free trial.

🚀 Next-Gen IDEs ("Cursor Killers")

  1. Cursor: The OG. Free tier is decent but limits "fast" requests.
  2. Zed: High-performance, AI-integrated (Free tier available).
  3. Augment Code: Free tier (3000 messages/month).
  4. PearAI: Open source fork of VS Code.
  5. Trae: ByteDance's super-fast IDE.
  6. Void: Open source Cursor alternative.
  7. Melty: Open source AI code editor.
  8. Lapce: Rust-based, fast.
  9. Lite XL: Lightweight.
  10. Pulsar: Hackable editor.

🧩 Specialized & Emerging

  1. Phind: Dev search (Unlimited standard).
  2. Perplexity: Dev search (Free tier).
  3. Fine.dev: Agents for devs.
  4. Second.dev: Migrations.
  5. Factory: Droid factories for code.
  6. Emdash: AI for docs.
  7. Amp: Next-gen editor.
  8. Crush: AI IDE.
  9. BoltAI: Native Mac client.
  10. Rovo Dev: Atlassian's AI.
  11. Zencoder: Code compression.
  12. Tabnine: AI autocomplete (Free Basic).
  13. Sourcegraph Cody: AI coding assistant (Free tier).
  14. Codeium (Extension): The standalone extension.
  15. Diffblue Cover: Java unit test generator (Free Community Edition).
  16. Codiga: Static analysis & snippets (Free tier).

🔄 The "Infinite Free" Rotation Strategy

How do you code for free forever without hitting limits? Use this rotation:

  1. Start with Google Antigravity or Firebase Studio for your main development environment.
  2. Use Bolt.new or Lovable to scaffold your initial UI.
  3. Hit a limit? Export the code to Windsurf or VS Code (with Cline).
  4. Need an API Key? Use Google AI Studio or Groq to get free keys for Cline/Roo.
  5. Need a GPU? Switch to Colab or Kaggle.
  6. Need a second opinion? Paste the error into Phind or Perplexity.
  7. Try Chinese Agents: Use Tongyi Lingma or Trae for a fresh perspective and huge context windows.

Disclaimer: Pricing and tiers are accurate as of November 21, 2025. SaaS companies change pricing often. Always check the official pricing page before committing.

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