niuniu

Posted on Jul 16

I Deleted Cursor, Copilot, and Windsurf. Here Is What I Use Instead.

I have been coding for 5 years. I have used every AI tool on the market. Cursor, Copilot, Windsurf, Cody, you name it.

Last month, I deleted all of them.

Not because they are bad. They are great. But I found something better. Something free. Something that runs on my machine and never sends my code to the cloud.

The Problem With AI Coding Tools

Every AI coding tool has the same issue: your code leaves your machine.

When you accept a suggestion from Cursor, your code context is sent to their servers. When Copilot completes your line, your code is processed on Microsoft's servers.

For personal projects, maybe that is fine. But for work? For client code? For proprietary algorithms?

That is a deal breaker.

The Price Problem

Let us talk about money:

Cursor: $20/month
GitHub Copilot: $10/month
Windsurf: $15/month
Cody: $9/month

That is $54-648 per year. Per developer. For a team of 10, that is $5,400-6,480 per year.

For what? For code suggestions that may or may not be correct?

What I Found

Three weeks ago, I discovered MonkeyCode. It is an open-source AI coding platform that runs locally.

Here is what makes it different:

1. It Is Actually Free

Not "free tier with 50 requests." Not "free trial for 14 days." Actually free. Forever.

I have been using it daily for three weeks. Code completions, chat, code review, refactoring. All of it. No limits. No credit card. No catch.

2. Your Code Stays Private

MonkeyCode runs on your machine. Your code never leaves your computer. No cloud servers. No data collection. No "we may use your code to improve our models."

This matters for:

Client work (NDA compliance)
Proprietary algorithms
Security-sensitive code
Personal projects you care about

3. You Choose Your Model

MonkeyCode is not locked to one AI provider. You can use:

MiMo (Xiaomi's open-source model)
GPT-4o or GPT-5 (OpenAI)
Claude (Anthropic)
Local models via Ollama (free forever)

Switch models based on your task. Use a fast model for completions, a powerful one for complex refactoring.

4. It Works With Your IDE

MonkeyCode integrates with:

VS Code (via extension)
JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, etc.)

It feels like Copilot, but free and private.

My Results After 3 Weeks

Metric	Before (Cursor)	After (MonkeyCode)
Monthly cost	$20	$0
Features shipped	5/week	8/week
Code privacy	Cloud	100% Local
Model flexibility	Locked	Any model
Peace of mind	Low	High

The Setup

Getting started takes 5 minutes:

# Clone and run
git clone https://github.com/chaitin/MonkeyCode.git
cd MonkeyCode
docker-compose up -d

# Optional: Use free local models
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b

That is it. No account creation. No credit card. No subscription.

What I Miss (And What I Do Not)

I do not miss:

Monthly subscription notifications
"You have 10 remaining requests" warnings
Worrying about code privacy
Being locked to one AI provider

I do miss (a little):

Cursor's polished UI (MonkeyCode is simpler)
The massive extension ecosystem
English documentation (improving)

The Bigger Picture

The AI coding tool market is exploding. Every week there is a new tool, a new pricing model, a new "game-changing" feature.

But here is what most people miss: the core technology is commoditizing. The models are getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. Open-source models are catching up to closed-source ones.

The real value is not in the model. It is in the tooling around it. And MonkeyCode has nailed the tooling.

Try It

If you are paying for AI coding tools right now, ask yourself: why?

What AI coding tools do you use? How much are you paying? Would you switch to a free, private alternative?

P.S. I am not sponsored by MonkeyCode. I just think free, private tools deserve more attention.

P.P.S. If you are a student or indie developer, MonkeyCode is especially great. No budget? No problem.

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