Best AI for Coding Free: 9 Tools for 2026

Best AI for coding free in 2026: GitHub Copilot Free, Google Antigravity, Codex and OpenCode lead, but every free plan caps agent use in a different way.

Quick answer: for autocomplete inside VS Code, start with GitHub Copilot Free. For a free agent that plans and edits whole features, try Google Antigravity. If you already use ChatGPT, Codex is included in the Free plan. If you want no quota at all, use OpenCode with its free models or Zed with your own API key. We checked every plan below on the official pricing pages on November 12, 2026.

The free plans at a glance

Tool	What the free plan gives you	Cheapest paid plan
GitHub Copilot Free	2,000 completions a month, limited chat and agent use, Copilot CLI, models such as Haiku 4.5 and GPT-5 mini	Pro, $10 a month
Google Antigravity	Agent models, unlimited Tab completions and Command requests, basic weekly rate limits	Google AI Pro subscription
Codex (ChatGPT Free)	GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout	ChatGPT Go, $8 a month
OpenCode	Open source agent with a set of free models, no account needed	OpenCode Go, from $10 a month
Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf)	Light agent quota, limited models, unlimited inline edits and Tab completions	Pro, $20 a month
Kiro	50 credits a month, open weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5	Pro, $20 a month (1,000 credits)
Amazon Q Developer	50 agentic requests a month in the IDE and CLI, 1,000 lines a month of Java upgrades	Pro, $19 per user a month
Zed	Free editor, unlimited use with your own API keys or external agents	Pro, $10 a month ($5 of tokens)
Cursor	Limited agent and chat requests	Plus, $8 a month

Our angle: free AI coding has two kinds of limits

Every list of free coding tools mixes up two different things. Completions, the grey text that finishes your line, are cheap to run, so most tools give them away: Antigravity and Devin Desktop offer unlimited Tab completions, and Copilot Free gives 2,000 a month. Agent requests, where the AI reads your repo, writes several files and runs commands, are expensive. That is where every free plan is tight: 50 a month on Amazon Q, 50 credits on Kiro, a “light quota” on Devin Desktop and “limited” use on Copilot and Cursor.

So the real question is not which tool is free, but which kind of work you need free. For learning and small scripts, a completions-heavy plan is enough. For building whole features with an agent, the free route that lasts is bring-your-own-model: OpenCode or Zed paired with a free or cheap model, where the tool itself never runs out.

1. GitHub Copilot Free: best for autocomplete in your editor

Copilot Free needs no credit card and works in VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, Neovim, Eclipse and Zed. You get 2,000 completions a month and limited chat and agent mode. Pro at $10 a month removes the completion cap and adds Copilot in the cloud, code review and third-party agents such as Claude Code and Codex. Verified students get the Copilot Student plan.

2. Google Antigravity: best free agent IDE

Antigravity is Google’s agent-first coding app, with a desktop app, CLI and IDE extensions. The individual plan is $0 with unlimited Tab completions and Command requests and basic weekly rate limits on agent models. It also replaced Gemini Code Assist for individuals: Google says those IDE extensions and Gemini CLI stopped serving free and consumer accounts on June 18, 2026, and points users to Antigravity.

3. Codex on ChatGPT Free: best if you already use ChatGPT

OpenAI’s Codex pricing page says Codex is included in ChatGPT Free, with GPT-6 Luna at Standard speed in the desktop app, subject to rollout. It is meant for quick coding tasks. ChatGPT Go at $8 a month is the cheapest step up, and Plus at $20 adds Codex on the web, CLI, IDE extension and iOS.

4. OpenCode: best free open source agent

OpenCode is an open source coding agent for the terminal, desktop and phone. It ships with a set of free models and needs no account, and it can connect to 200+ model providers, including local models. We used it in our test of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash for free in OpenCode. OpenCode Go adds curated models from $10 a month.

5. Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf): best unlimited Tab plus a taste of agents

The free plan keeps unlimited Tab completions and inline edits, with a light agent quota and limited models. Pro at $20 a month unlocks frontier models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others, plus cloud agents.

6. Kiro, Amazon Q Developer, Zed and Cursor

• Kiro: 50 free credits a month with open weight models and Claude Sonnet 4.5. New Pro users get the rest of the month free plus 500 trial credits.
• Amazon Q Developer: 50 agentic requests a month in the IDE and CLI, plus Java upgrade help. Best if you build on AWS.
• Zed: the editor is free forever, with unlimited use through your own API keys or external agents such as Claude Agent and Codex CLI.
• Cursor: the free tier now offers only limited agent and chat requests, so treat it as a trial.

Which free AI coding tool should you pick?

• Student or beginner: GitHub Copilot Free (or Copilot Student) in VS Code.
• Building whole features: Google Antigravity, then OpenCode when you hit the weekly limit.
• Already pay for an AI model: Zed or OpenCode with your own key, so the editor never caps you.
• Non-developer building an app: see our guide to the best vibe coding tools for non-technical founders.

One warning: free plans change fast. Gemini Code Assist for individuals, once one of the most generous free tools, shut down for consumer accounts in June 2026, so do not build your workflow around a single free quota. For paid agents, compare our list of the best AI agents for coding.

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