December 2025 was an unusually strong month for developers. 3 positive changes outweighed 1 negative ones, with several vendors adding or expanding free tiers.
4
Total Changes +2 vs last month
1
Negative
3
Positive +2 vs last month
0
Neutral
Changes by Type
Change Type
Count
New Free Tier
3
Limits Reduced
1
Biggest Losers
Vendors that eliminated or reduced free tiers
Google Gemini (1 negative change)
Google quietly slashed Gemini API free tier rate limits by 50-80% in late 2025. Gemini 2.5 Flash went from ~250 requests/day to 20-50. Pro model free tier removed entirely. A Google PM admitted generous limits were only supposed to be available for a single weekend
Biggest Winners
Vendors that added or expanded free tiers
Terragrunt Scale (1 positive change)
Gruntwork launches free tier for Terragrunt Scale IaC orchestration platform, positioned as HCP Terraform free tier alternative ahead of HashiCorp March 31, 2026 EOL. Includes GitOps, drift detection, and module update automation
GitHub Copilot (1 positive change)
GitHub launched Copilot Free tier — AI code completion available to all GitHub users at no cost. 2,000 completions and 50 chat messages per month included
Gemini Code Assist (1 positive change)
Google launched Gemini Code Assist free tier for individual developers. Includes code completions, chat, and multi-file editing powered by Gemini 2.5 Pro. Available in VS Code, JetBrains, and Cloud Shell