Free AI Coding Tools: Complete 2025 Guide

This is Part 1 of the AI Coding Tools Price Guide:

• Free AI Coding Tools (You are here)
• Budget AI Tools ($5-20/month)
• Premium AI Tools ($30+/month)

Free AI coding tools have matured significantly. Here are production-ready options without monthly costs.

Free Tier Comparison

Tool	Model Access	Limits	Best For
Gemini Code Assist	Gemini 2.0 Flash	Unlimited	Quick completions
Trae Free	Multiple models	500 requests/mo	Multi-model testing
OpenRouter Free	Various models	Rate limits	API experimentation
Qwen 2.5 Coder	Qwen 2.5 32B	Unlimited	Local CLI coding
DeepSeek	DeepSeek V3	API limits	Cost-conscious devs
Cline (BYOK)	Your API key	Your budget	Full IDE control
Continue.dev (BYOK)	Your API key	Your budget	VS Code native

Gemini Code Assist (Free)

Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash through Code Assist provides unlimited completions.

Setup:

# Install extension in VS Code
code --install-extension google.gemini-code-assist

Configuration:

1. Open VS Code settings
2. Search “Gemini Code Assist”
3. Sign in with Google account
4. Enable inline completions

Strengths:

• Unlimited usage with no monthly limits
• Fast completion speed
• Good context awareness
• Multi-language support

Limitations:

• Requires Google account
• Privacy: Code sent to Google servers
• Limited to completions (no chat mode in free tier)

Trae AI Free Tier

500 free requests per month across multiple models.

Features:

• Access to Claude, GPT-4, Gemini
• Chat interface for debugging
• Code generation and refactoring
• File context support

Installation:

npm install -g trae-cli
trae auth login

Usage:

# Generate code
trae generate "function to parse JSON"

# Debug error
trae debug error.log

# Refactor code
trae refactor old-code.js

Best for: Developers who need multi-model access without commitment.

OpenRouter Free Tier

Pay-per-use with free credits and rate-limited free models.

Free Models:

• Meta Llama 3.1 8B Instruct (Free)
• Google Gemma 2 9B (Free)
• Mistral 7B Instruct (Free)

Setup:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your_key"

Integration with VS Code:

{
  "continue.apiKey": "${OPENROUTER_API_KEY}",
  "continue.modelProvider": "openrouter",
  "continue.model": "meta-llama/llama-3.1-8b-instruct:free"
}

Advantages:

• Multiple free models
• No monthly subscription
• API-based (works with any client)

Qwen 2.5 Coder (Unlimited Free)

Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B available free via CLI.

Installation:

pip install qwen-coder-cli

Usage:

# Code generation
qwen "write a binary search in Swift"

# Code review
qwen review app.swift

# Explain code
qwen explain "func factorial(_ n: Int) -> Int"

Performance:

• Beats GPT-4 on HumanEval (87.3% vs 67%)
• Excellent for algorithm problems
• Strong multi-language support

DeepSeek V3 (API Credits)

$5 free API credits monthly.

Pricing after free tier:

• $0.27 per million input tokens
• $1.10 per million output tokens

Setup:

export DEEPSEEK_API_KEY="your_key"

Cost Example:

# Average coding session (10K tokens in, 5K out)
Cost: (10K * $0.27 / 1M) + (5K * $1.10 / 1M)
    = $0.0027 + $0.0055
    = $0.0082 per session

$5 = ~600 coding sessions.

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) Tools

Cline (VS Code)

Free extension, pay only for API usage.

Supported Providers:

• Anthropic Claude ($0-$20/month)
• OpenAI GPT-4 ($5-$50/month)
• Google Gemini (Free tier available)

Installation:

code --install-extension saoudrizwan.claude-dev

Cost Control:

{
  "cline.maxTokensPerRequest": 4000,
  "cline.autoApprove": false
}

Continue.dev (VS Code)

Open-source BYOK alternative.

Setup:

code --install-extension continue.continue

Config (~/.continue/config.json):

{
  "models": [
    {
      "title": "Claude Sonnet",
      "provider": "anthropic",
      "model": "claude-3-5-sonnet-20241022",
      "apiKey": "${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}"
    },
    {
      "title": "GPT-4o",
      "provider": "openai",
      "model": "gpt-4o",
      "apiKey": "${OPENAI_API_KEY}"
    }
  ]
}

Budget Management:

• Set usage limits in provider dashboards
• Track costs through provider billing
• Use cheaper models for simple tasks

Cost Comparison

Option	True Cost	Limits	Control
Gemini Code Assist	$0	Unlimited	Low
Trae Free	$0	500 req/mo	Medium
Qwen CLI	$0	Unlimited	High
DeepSeek API	~$0.01/session	API limits	High
Cline (Claude)	$0.25-$2/day	Your budget	Very High
Continue (GPT-4o)	$0.50-$3/day	Your budget	Very High

Recommendation Strategy

For beginners: Start with Gemini Code Assist (unlimited, no setup complexity).

For experimentation: Use Trae Free (500 requests covers learning phase).

For CLI workflows: Qwen 2.5 Coder (unlimited, excellent for algorithms).

For advanced users: Cline or Continue.dev with API credits (full control, pay-as-you-go).

For budget-conscious: DeepSeek API ($5 free credits = 600 sessions).

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Next: Budget AI Tools ($5-20/month)