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 September 2026.

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Cursor Alternatives

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 (limited Agent requests, no published figure), 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)

Top Alternatives

Claude Code Paid

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) or $200/month (20x), 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 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

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GitHub Copilot Free caution 2026-06-24 restricted

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.

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Amazon Q Developer Free stable

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.

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Cline Open Source

Open-source autonomous AI coding agent for VS Code. Fully free — users provide their own API keys (OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, etc.). Supports file editing, terminal commands, browser interaction. No usage limits beyond API provider costs. MIT licensed.The page we cite for this offer states no amount, tier or rate we can read when we last looked, on 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

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Aider Open Source

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 2026-09-02, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

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Windsurf Free

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 2026-09-24, so we cannot confirm these terms today.

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Augment Code Retired

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

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Gemini CLI Free caution 2026-06-18 restricted

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 still advertises 60 requests a minute and 1,000 a day with a personal Google account. With a Gemini API key, use counts against the Gemini API's own free tier and pricing. A Gemini Code Assist Standard or Enterprise licence is unaffected. Supports MCP tools, shell commands and file editing.

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Amazon Kiro Free caution 2026-06-03 reduced

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. $20 credit towards first paid plan upgrade.

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Free Tier Comparison

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.

Tool Free Tier Type Open Source Key Strength
Cursor Limited Agent requests IDE (VS Code fork) — Inline editing + chat in one IDE
Claude Code None (paid plans or API key) Terminal agent — Deep agentic coding — reads/writes files, runs commands
GitHub Copilot 2,000 completions/mo, 50 chat msgs/mo IDE extension — Widest IDE support (VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim, Xcode)
Cline Free (bring your own API key) VS Code extension ✅ Apache-2.0 Autonomous agent — no vendor lock-in
Aider Free (bring your own API key) Terminal CLI ✅ Apache-2.0 AI pair programming — multi-file edits, git integration
Windsurf Limited Cascade AI access IDE (VS Code fork) — AI Flow — multi-step autonomous workflows
Augment CodeRetired — the offer has ended, so there is no free tier to compare.
Amazon Q Developer Unlimited completions, 50 agent/mo IDE extension + CLI — AWS integration — code transformation, security scans
Gemini CLI With a Gemini API key Terminal CLI ✅ Apache-2.0 1M token context window — massive codebase analysis

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.

Quick Comparison

Tool Free Tier Details Stability
Claude Code Paid Agentic coding tool by Anthropic: it reads a codebase, edits files, runs commands and works with development tools, in t... —
GitHub Copilot Free AI coding assistant by GitHub. Copilot Free is $0 with no credit card: 2,000 code completions a month, a limited monthly... caution
2026-06-24 restricted
Amazon Q Developer Free AI coding assistant by AWS. Free tier: inline code suggestions, chat, 1,000 lines code transformation/month, 50 agentic ... stable
Cline Open Source Open-source autonomous AI coding agent for VS Code. Fully free — users provide their own API keys (OpenRouter, Anthropic... —
Aider Open Source Open-source AI pair programming CLI tool. Fully free — users provide their own LLM API keys (supports GPT-4o, Claude, Ge... —
Windsurf Free Windsurf is now Devin Desktop ("Devin Desktop is the new name for Windsurf."), Cognition's AI IDE. windsurf.com/pricing ... —
Augment Code Retired AI coding assistant with deep codebase understanding. No free tier. Standard $20/month flat and Business $100/month flat... —
Gemini CLI Free Open-source terminal AI coding agent by Google, Apache 2.0 licensed. Since 2026-06-18, Login with Google no longer works... caution
2026-06-18 restricted
Amazon Kiro Free 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... caution
2026-06-03 reduced

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claude mcp add agentdeals -- npx -y agentdeals

Works with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf → Full setup guide