Cursor moved to credit-based pricing in 2025. Compare AI coding alternatives and their free tiers: GitHub Copilot, Cline, Aider, Windsurf, Amazon Q Developer and Gemini CLI, beside paid Claude Code. Catalogue dates June to November 2026.
Cursor — the AI-powered code editor built on VS Code — shifted to credit-based pricing in mid-2025, plus a new $200/month Ultra tier. The free tier still exists (Free, with limited Agent and Chat usage), but the credit model makes costs less predictable for heavy users. Developers are actively evaluating alternatives.
The AI coding tool landscape has exploded in 2026. Terminal-based agents (Claude Code, Aider, Gemini CLI), IDE extensions (GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Augment Code), and open-source autonomous agents (Cline) each offer different trade-offs between cost, flexibility, and capability.
Below are the best free alternatives to Cursor, compared by what you actually get for free — exact limits, open-source status, and what each tool is best at.
Pricing Restructured
Cursor moved Pro from 500 requests a month to usage-based pricing and introduced a $200/month Ultra tier. Source ↗
Before: Pro plan $20/month with 500 fast requests After: Pro plan $20/month (credit-based), Business $40/seat/month, Ultra $200/month (higher credit limits)
Agentic coding tool by Anthropic: it reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and works with development tools, in the terminal, IDEs, a desktop app and the browser. No free plan: "Claude Code is included in all paid plans", and Claude's Free plan does not include it. Pro is $20/month billed monthly ($17/month billed annually), Max is $100/month (5x Pro usage), Ultra is $200/month (10x Pro usage every week, with no 5-hour limit for accounts that complete Anthropic's verification), Team Standard seats are $25/seat billed monthly ($20 billed annually), and Enterprise is "$20 per seat per month plus usage billed at API rates". Plan usage is shared with Claude chat. At the limit, paid plans can turn on usage credits billed at standard API rates, or use an Anthropic API key billed pay-as-you-go.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-10-14, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
AI coding assistant by GitHub. Copilot Free is $0 with no credit card: 2,000 code completions a month, a limited monthly allowance of GitHub AI Credits for chat and agent features, and models through auto model selection only. Copilot Student is free for verified students. Paid plans include a monthly allowance of AI credits: Pro $10 (1,500 credits), Pro+ $39 (7,000) and Max $100 (20,000); Business $19 (1,900) and Enterprise $39 (3,900) per seat. Code completions are unlimited on paid plans, and usage beyond an allowance costs $0.01 per AI credit.
AI coding assistant by AWS. Free tier: inline code suggestions, chat, 1,000 lines code transformation/month, 50 agentic requests/month, access to latest Claude models. Supports VS Code, JetBrains, CLI, and AWS Console. Pro plan $19/user/month (higher limits, admin controls, IP indemnity). AWS will end support for the Amazon Q Developer IDE plugins on April 30, 2027, and points IDE users to Kiro.When we read the page we cite for this offer on 2026-10-05, we refused the change we considered recording because it named no figure that had moved, and we have read it again since, on 2026-10-31, without confirming the terms above, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
Open-source autonomous AI coding agent for VS Code. Fully free. Users can bring their own API keys (OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.) or use the Cline provider. Supports file editing, terminal commands, browser interaction. No usage limits beyond API provider costs. Cline is Apache 2.0 licensed.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-10-14, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
Open-source AI pair programming CLI tool. Fully free — users provide their own LLM API keys (supports GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Ollama local models). Git-aware editing, multi-file changes, voice coding, in-chat image support. Apache 2.0 licensed.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-10-14, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
Windsurf is now Devin Desktop ("Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf."), Cognition's AI IDE. windsurf.com/pricing redirects to devin.ai/pricing, which prices it together with Devin. The Free plan ($0) includes a "Light quota to code with agents", "Limited model availability", "Unlimited inline edits" and "Unlimited Tab completions", with quotas that reset daily and weekly. Pro is $20/month, Max $200/month, and Teams "$80/month for team plan + $40/mo per full dev seat"; paid plans can buy extra usage at API list prices. Pro subscribers on the old $15/month price keep it indefinitely.The page we cite for this offer does not name it when we last looked, on 2026-11-13, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
AI coding assistant with deep codebase understanding. No free tier. Standard $20/month flat and Business $100/month flat, each covering up to 50 seats with $20 and $100 of included monthly usage respectively across LLM, Context Engine and compute; top-ups are pay-as-you-go. Enterprise is custom-priced. Flat team pricing with no per-seat charge. Supports VS Code, JetBrains and CLI. SOC 2 Type II certified
Open-source terminal AI coding agent by Google, Apache 2.0 licensed. Since 2026-06-18, Login with Google no longer works for personal accounts, according to Google's Gemini Code Assist deprecation notice. The README advertised 60 requests a minute and 1,000 a day with a personal Google account until October 16, 2026, when Google removed it. For unpaid-tier and Google One users, Google says Gemini CLI was replaced by Antigravity CLI on June 18, 2026. Google says Gemini CLI has not been optimized for Gemini 4 Argon and to use Antigravity for Gemini 4 Argon. With a Gemini API key, use counts against the Gemini API's own free tier and pricing. Google stopped selling new Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise subscriptions on 2026-10-09, so a team cannot buy one now to use Gemini CLI. Subscriptions bought before then still work with Gemini CLI. Annual Gemini Code Assist Standard and Enterprise subscriptions can be renewed until 2027-01-31 and monthly ones until 2027-12-31. Google points personal users to its Antigravity products, including Antigravity CLI. Supports MCP tools, shell commands and file editing.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-10-24, so we cannot confirm these terms today.
With a Gemini API key, Gemini CLI uses the Gemini API Free Tier, which needs no billing account or credit card. Linking a billing account and prepaying at least $5 moves the project to the Paid Tier. (From ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/billing, read 2026-10-23.)
On the Free Tier, a request over any rate limit gets a rate limit error. Limits apply per project, not per key. Daily request quotas reset at midnight Pacific time. (From ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/rate-limits, read 2026-10-23.)
Google's Gemini API pricing page says Free Tier content is used to improve Google's products, which covers Gemini CLI prompts sent with a free API key. (From ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/pricing, read 2026-10-23.)
AI coding tool by AWS, with an IDE, a CLI and a web interface. Prompts run by default on Auto, "an agent that uses a mix of different frontier models", and users can pick Claude, GPT or open-weight models. KIRO FREE $0 per month 50 credits. KIRO PRO $20 per user / month 1,000 credits. KIRO PRO+ $40 per user / month 2,000 credits. KIRO PRO MAX $100 per user / month 5,000 credits. KIRO POWER $200 per user / month 10,000 credits. Add-on credits are $0.04/credit. Credit pooling is for teams of 2 or more. Each seat costs $20 per month and adds 500 credits a month to the shared pool. Admins can buy add-on credits for the pool at $0.04 per credit. From November 1, 2026, the first upgrade to Pro includes the rest of that month free and 500 trial credits. Trial credits are used after plan credits and expire after 12 months. On the free tier, unused trial credits carry over but can only be spent on free-tier models. Before November 1, 2026, the first upgrade includes a $20 discount. From that date, plan fees and credits are prorated.
Kiro subscriptions can be used with Kiro IDE, Kiro CLI, Kiro Web, Kiro Crew, ACP compatible IDEs, and automation in software development. Use through third-party automation harnesses such as OpenClaw is not permitted. (From kiro.dev/pricing, read 2026-10-16.)
Monthly plan credits reset at the start of each billing month and unused ones do not roll over. Add-on credits roll over and expire 12 months after purchase. (From kiro.dev/pricing, read 2026-10-16.)
What you actually get for free on each AI coding tool. Open-source tools (Cline, Aider) have no vendor limits — you pay only for the LLM API you choose.
Cline and Aider are fully free — you pay only for the LLM API calls (OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.). Gemini CLI has run on a Gemini API key since Google stopped personal-account sign-in on 2026-06-18.
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