I've been building RelahConvert — a 37-tool image toolkit — entirely with Claude Code. No traditional coding background. Just prompts and persistence.
It got me thinking. Everyone claims to use AI for coding now. But which one actually wins in the real world?
So I started paying attention. Forums, Twitter, Reddit, dev.to comments. Here's what I actually found:
The honest breakdown:
GitHub Copilot — the corporate safe choice. Used by developers who already know how to code and want autocomplete on steroids. Nobody brags about it. Nobody hates it. It just exists.
ChatGPT — the first tool everyone tried. Still popular for quick questions and explaining code. But people rarely use it to actually build full projects anymore.
Cursor — the new darling. Every developer on Twitter seems to be using Cursor right now. It's eating Copilot's lunch among serious developers.
Claude Code — the one nobody talks about publicly but keeps appearing in solo founder stories. Especially for people building full products from scratch, not just autocompleting lines.
Gemini — Google's answer. Technically impressive. Nobody seems emotionally attached to it.
The pattern I noticed:
Developers who already code → use Copilot or Cursor to go faster
Non-developers building products → use Claude Code or ChatGPT to actually ship
Two completely different use cases. Two completely different tools winning.
The controversial part:
The "vibe coder" debate is pointless.
People who gatekeep coding — "you're not a real developer if you use AI" — are the same people who said "you're not a real developer if you use Stack Overflow" in 2010.
The output is what matters. I shipped 37 tools in 6 weeks. I don't know what a for loop looks like from memory. My users don't care.
The real question nobody asks:
Not "which AI do you use?"
But "did you actually ship anything?"
Most people collecting AI coding tools haven't shipped a single thing. The tool isn't the flex. The product is.
What are you actually using to build — and have you shipped something with it? 👇
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