Claude Code is a decent AI programming tool, but its price of $200 per month has pushed many developers to seek more affordable solutions. Furthermore, some long-time users have recently reported a decline in the quality of the tool, which has only increased the demand for alternatives.
One such alternative gaining attention is CodeBuddy, a new tool released by Tencent, which promises to deliver a more affordable and accessible solution. But does CodeBuddy really live up to the hype? Let’s find out.
What is CodeBuddy?
CodeBuddy is more than just a CLI tool. It also supports plugins and an IDE, allowing users to interact with the tool in multiple ways. These three components—CLI, plugins, and the IDE—are designed to work together seamlessly.
- Plugins: These are great for everyday developers and offer features like real-time code completion, cross-file analysis, and refactoring. They integrate directly into existing workflows.
- IDE: Ideal for large teams and complex projects, the IDE offers project-level context understanding, task decomposition, and rule-based programming. It serves as an integrated platform for product, design, and development teams.
- CLI: The CLI is perfect for automation and batch processing, such as replacing APIs in bulk, indexing entire code repositories, and integrating with CI/CD workflows.
Tencent claims that CodeBuddy can handle 90% of coding tasks. Whether that’s true or not, let’s try it out and see for ourselves.
Installing CodeBuddy with ServBay
One of the great things about ServBay is that it allows you to set up the development environment quickly. Here’s how you can get started with CodeBuddy:
Prerequisites
- Install ServBay: First, visit ServBay’s official website and download the installer.
- Install Node.js: Open ServBay, go to the "Packages" section, select Node.js, and install the version you need. This process takes about 1 minute.
- Verify: After installing Node.js, you can verify it via the terminal. ServBay also automatically installs npm, the package manager for Node.js.
Installing CodeBuddy
With the environment ready, now we can install CodeBuddy.
In the terminal, run the following command to install CodeBuddy:
npm install -g @tencent-ai/codebuddy-code.
Once installed, type CodeBuddy in the command line to open the login page.
You can log in with your Google or GitHub account and start using models like GPT, Gemini, and more.
To see the list of available models, simply run the /model command. This will give you access to all the popular models that CodeBuddy supports.
Practical Example: Building a Snake Game
Let’s test CodeBuddy by asking it to generate a simple Snake game.
As it runs, it might request some permissions. Within a few minutes, the game is ready.
Initially, when opening the game, it shows "Game Over". I asked CodeBuddy to check and fix the issue, and it quickly identified the problem.
After fixing it, the game worked perfectly!
While this is a simple example, it shows the potential of CodeBuddy in generating code and debugging.
Conclusion
While CodeBuddy may not be perfect yet, it holds a lot of promise. According to Tencent’s data, it can reduce coding time by 40%, with over 50% of the code being generated by AI. This is particularly beneficial for developers and teams working on large projects.
The best part is that CodeBuddy is currently free, making it a great opportunity to explore its features. Plus, with ServBay, you can easily set up the development environment, helping you dive straight into using CodeBuddy without any hassle.
So, why not give it a try?
ServBay makes it easy to start with CodeBuddy, especially for beginners. Try out CodeBuddy today and explore the future of programming.
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