I've Tested Free Vs. Paid Ai Coding Tools - Here's Which One I'd Actually Use

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

• Free AI chatbots grip mini projects amazingly well.
• Pro coding agents present superior productivity boosts for pro coders.
• Spend based connected what you request to get nan occupation done.

The usage of AI successful coding has exploded successful nan past fewer years. What was an amazing curiosity successful April 2023 is now impacting each programmer connected nan planet.

As nan IEEE (a master statement for engineers) reports, headcount for young, early-career programmers has plummeted complete nan past 2 years. But much elder developers are utilizing AI to make themselves much productive.

Then location are nan AI devices themselves. They scope from free AI devices that costs nothing, each nan measurement up to nearly $1,000 per month for a scope of master AI tools. These devices usage a sizeable magnitude of computing resources, and their vendors complaint accordingly.

Also: The apical 20 AI devices of 2025 - and nan #1 point to retrieve erstwhile you usage them

If you're a programmer aliases want to program, what does that mean? Do you request to walk nan large bucks, aliases tin you get distant pinch a free solution?

That's what I'll reply successful this article. The short reply is, it depends connected you. Let's excavation in.

Understand AI coding devices

AI coding devices scope from nan very mostly useful each nan measurement to ace in-the-weeds specialized devices for solving specialized problems. There are astatine slightest a twelve of these categories. Stay tuned to nan extremity of this article, because I'll see a short glossary for each of those categories.

But, for nan purposes of this discussion, let's talk astir 3 main categories: chatbots, AIs that unrecorded successful nan programming environment, and AI agents.

Chatbots are for illustration ChatGPT aliases Gemini. You type queries into a general-purpose chatbot, and it gives you backmost immoderate code. This is the first measurement astir of america became acquainted pinch AI programming. We dumped snippets of codification into nan chat punctual area, and nan chatbot responded.

Programmers usage powerful matter editors to constitute code. Usually, these editors are integrated into an IDE (integrated programming environment) that contains nan editor, record management, root codification control, debugging, sometimes a database entree window, a terminal window, and more.

Also: I'm an AI devices expert, and these are nan 4 I salary for now (plus 2 I'm eyeing)

If you cognize Photoshop, you cognize it has a bunch of different windows and tools, each designed to thief you negociate photos, each wrong Photoshop. An IDE is for illustration that, but for coding.

AI devices are now becoming much integrated into IDEs. An open-source IDE from Microsoft called VS Code is nan astir common. Another 1 is Cursor, which is based connected VS Code but has immoderate autochthonal AI smarts. In each of these cases, nan AI exists successful various IDE devices and helps pinch codification procreation and bid completion.

A variety connected this is nan AI devices (like Claude Code) that activity chiefly done terminal windows. Since terminal windows are often recovered successful IDEs, I'm including them successful nan aforesaid category.

Then location are nan AI coding agents. These are devices that tin do a full bunch of steps based connected 1 azygous petition aliases prompt. They tin modify snippets of code, alteration full sections of code, tally terminal commands, upload and download changes to GitHub, and more. They are enormously powerful, but arsenic Spider-Man's Uncle Ben says, "With awesome powerfulness comes awesome responsibility."

We'll look astatine these much successful a minute. But first, let's fig retired what it is you need.

What do you need?

An affinity tin really thief reply this question. You want to move immoderate stuff. What do you need?

Well, that benignant of depends connected nan stuff, doesn't it? What is nan size of nan project? If you're moving a large array saw from nan section Home Depot to your workshop, you tin astir apt inquire a friend pinch a pickup motortruck to thief you move it. The costs to you, worst case, is immoderate state money.

On nan different hand, if you request to move nan contents of a location from New Jersey to Florida utilizing a large rig pinch a 53-foot trailer, you're talking large bucks, because nan costs of nan team, nan truck, roadworthy fees, and much adds up fast.

So, erstwhile it comes to utilizing AI for coding, are you doing a pickup truck's worthy of coding, aliases do you request to tally projects connected nan standard of sending large rigs crossed nan state each day?

As pinch nan moving van example, location are costs economics driving it all, mostly based connected assets constraints. After all, AI information centers are huge and costs billions of dollars. Someone's sewage to salary for each that gear, power, and land.

Here are immoderate of nan ways various coding plans are assets constrained based connected costs level:

• Session and token limits: Tokens are mini units of matter being processed. This is simply a measurement of really galore tokens tin beryllium processed successful a request, arsenic good arsenic really agelong nan petition tin run.
• Rate and usage limits: These are limits based connected really galore requests per minute, hour, aliases day, really overmuch compute you tin use, and really galore concurrent sessions you tin tally astatine a time.
• Model entree and capacity differences: As we've travel to know, different AI models execute differently. AI vendors whitethorn limit lower-tier users to models that are little performant, require less resources, aliases person already been scaled. They whitethorn besides gross nan features you tin access, for illustration nan expertise to activity crossed aggregate files.
• Integration and situation limits: Lower-tier plans whitethorn limit integrations, for illustration moving only successful VS Code, while much premium plans mightiness support GitHub integration and different tools. They whitethorn besides limit you to a azygous record successful a codification repository compared to accessing each nan files successful an full repo. They besides mightiness not retrieve arsenic overmuch aliases person a measurement to clasp discourse and task history.
• Latency, priority, and uptime: Lower-tier plans whitethorn tally much slow aliases beryllium subjected to much waits. Sometimes free plans will acquisition various kinds of throttling aliases moreover downtime arsenic overworked resources are assigned to higher-tier plans.

My experiences

I americium not a full-time programmer. I do person programming chops, having been a machine subject professor successful a past life. So my usage has varied based connected what I'm trying to accomplish.

Up until astir 2 months ago, I was rather contented to usage in-chat ChatGPT coding support. I initially recovered that astir of nan ChatGPT coding worked good successful nan free plan, though coding successful nan astir obscure environments did baffle it. I've been paying for nan $20-per-month scheme because nan paid scheme offers more, and I'm perpetually utilizing ChatGPT for activity projects successful bid to constitute astir it.

Also: Is ChatGPT Plus still worthy $20 erstwhile nan free type offers truthful overmuch - including GPT-5?

I do person a freemium security/privacy merchandise that has a free open-source halfway pinch paid add-ons that mostly travel adjacent to covering my costs. I usage it arsenic portion of my continuing believe to make judge I support my programming chops up.

Also: Google's Jules AI coding supplier built a caller characteristic I could really vessel - while I made coffee

When Google's Jules and OpenAI's Codex came out, they were supplier devices that worked solely successful nan GitHub repo. While some were reasonably impressive, I didn't for illustration nan programming experience, truthful I didn't usage them different than to constitute an article aliases two.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's genitor company, revenge an April 2025 suit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights successful training and operating its AI systems.)

Also: I went hands-on pinch ChatGPT Codex and nan vibe was not bully - here's what happened

But past Codex was updated to activity inside VS Code. Even much interesting, OpenAI enabled Codex for those of america utilizing nan $20-per-month Plus plan. So I gave it a try.

Also: I did 24 days of coding successful 12 hours pinch a $20 AI instrumentality - but there's 1 large pitfall

The productivity wins were astounding. As nan title says, I sewage nan balanced of much than 3 weeks of coding activity done successful 12 hours. But I ran into throttling that proved some annoying and benignant of worrisome. Codex unopen maine down correct successful nan mediate of 1 of its runs, truthful it near my codification successful an chartless state. I didn't bask that.

But I did bask nan result. It not only helped maine go amazingly productive, but it was fun. So I took a large measurement and spent $200 for a period of nan Pro plan. Codex's task lead told maine that I wouldn't acquisition throttling aliases shutdowns if I utilized nan instrumentality for illustration a regular programmer (in different words, not spinning up hundreds of contexts astatine once).

And I did. I did a four-day sprint, utilizing Codex astir 12 hours a day, and I coiled up pinch 4 powerful caller add-ons for my information product. Since my erstwhile complaint of add-on accumulation was astir 1 a year, I felt I could honestly opportunity Codex gave maine 4 years of productivity successful 4 days.

Also: I sewage 4 years of merchandise improvement done successful 4 days for $200, and I'm still stunned

But past I turned nan work backmost down to nan $20-per-month Plus tier. That's because I can't prolong that benignant of programming sprint connected a regular basis. I seldom person that overmuch free time, and, frankly, I've sufficiently precocious my merchandise that I don't request to do more.

Also: 10 ChatGPT Codex secrets I only learned aft 60 hours of brace programming pinch it

In fact, it took maine different 2 aliases 3 weeks conscionable to move that codification into products, grounds nan videos, and create nan online shop pages. The merchandise trading took astir 5 times longer than nan coding.

Frankly, if I didn't request nan $20-per-month Plus tier for different aspects of my penning for ZDNET, I'd spell backmost to nan free plan. I conscionable don't request nan precocious coding devices that much, astatine slightest until I determine to do different large sprint.

What did we learn?

So what should each that show you astir your usage of coding tools? The large takeaway is that it depends connected what you're doing pinch them.

When I switched from doing a small broadside programming to a awesome merchandise improvement sprint, I paid much and sewage astonishing results. But erstwhile I was done pinch that sprint, I downgraded my tools.

If you're a full-time programmer, you (or your employer) are astir apt going to want to salary a fewer 100 dollars aliases much for a higher AI tier. The value-for-dollars ratio, considering really overmuch coders costs and really overmuch your clip is worth, is good worthy it.

But if you're a hobby programmer, aliases you want a small thief now and then, nan free scheme is mostly fine. If you want entree to amended models, you mightiness want to prime 1 of nan $20-per-month plans. But honestly, those free models were beautiful bad successful early 2023. In precocious 2025, they're really rather good. So you tin get reasonably acold on without paying anything.

Glossary of AI coding instrumentality position

I way AI devices successful bid to constitute astir them. Here's really I typically disagreement up nan main categories:

• Editor IDE: Full improvement environments that are AI-native aliases profoundly merge AI to plan, write, refactor, and negociate projects end-to-end.
• Editor extension: Add-ins for IDEs/editors that bring AI chat, inline edits, trial generation, aliases different assistive features into nan editor.
• Terminal agent: Command-line aliases shell-centric agents that publication and constitute section files, tally commands, and iterate from nan terminal.
• Cloud coding platform: Browser aliases unreality environments that supply AI-assisted coding, building, and deploying without section setup.
• GitHub automation: Bots aliases apps that enactment wrong GitHub to automate tasks for illustration triage, labeling, PR prep, and argumentation enforcement.
• PR review: AI that reviews propulsion requests, writes summaries, suggests diffs, enforces guidelines, aliases proposes follow-up commits.
• Code completion: Tools focused connected inline suggestions and autocompletion arsenic you type, often pinch chat and speedy edits.
• Security/quality fixer: AI that detects vulnerabilities aliases codification failures and proposes targeted, reviewable fixes.
• Documentation assistant: AI that generates aliases maintains READMEs, inline docs, API references, and explainer contented from code.
• Snippet/knowledge manager: AI that captures, organizes, retrieves, and explains codification snippets aliases developer knowledge.
• Self-hosted/on-premises server: Solutions designed to tally connected your infrastructure for privacy, control, and compliance.
• Repo-aware assistant: Assistants that scale your repository to supply context-aware chat, multi-file edits, and codification navigation.
• Other: Useful AI developer devices that don't fresh supra aliases legitimately span aggregate categories without a clear primary.

There you go. You don't request to cognize each these terms, but if you do, you astir apt besides cognize really overmuch AI you request for coding. If you don't cognize astir of these terms, you tin astir apt get by pinch a free AI scheme and usage it to summation your programming chops aliases conscionable thief you constitute immoderate code.

Just remember: AI tin beryllium incredibly stupid. Regardless of really overmuch you spend, it's up to you to guideline it. It will help, but it's acold from perfect. Even if you're caller to this coding thing, don't presume what nan AI recommends is much correct than you are. If it seems for illustration nan AI is going complete nan top, down a rabbit hole, aliases has mislaid its mind, it astir apt has. Listen to your gut.

Have you tried utilizing AI devices to thief you code? Do you instrumentality pinch free chatbot options for illustration ChatGPT aliases Gemini, aliases person you invested successful a paid coding supplier aliases IDE-integrated tool? What trade-offs person you noticed betwixt cost, capability, and reliability? And if you've tried some free and premium tiers, wherever do you deliberation nan champion equilibrium lies? Let america cognize successful nan comments below.

You tin travel my day-to-day task updates connected societal media. Be judge to subscribe to my play update newsletter, and travel maine connected Twitter/X astatine @DavidGewirtz, connected Facebook astatine Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, connected Instagram astatine Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, connected Bluesky astatine @DavidGewirtz.com, and connected YouTube astatine YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.

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