Best Tools to Build a Developer Tool (2026)

Cursor

free

AI-powered IDE designed to replace VS Code with predictive editing and project context

GitHub Copilot

paid

AI pair programmer with code completion chat and agent mode for agentic coding

Windsurf

free

Agentic IDE where developers and AI flow together (formerly Codeium)

Claude Code

paid

Command-line AI coding agent that understands your codebase and automates tasks via natural language

Amazon Q Developer

paid

Build and refactor AWS apps faster with AI that understands your stack

Cline

free

Autonomous AI coding agent for VS Code connecting CLI and editor via natural commands

Gemini Code Assist

paid

Google's AI coding assistant for IDEs

Aider

open-source

AI pair programming in your terminal with clean commits

Continue

open-source

Open-source plugin to create custom AI copilots in VS Code or JetBrains

JetBrains AI

paid

Deeply integrated AI assistant for JetBrains IDEs

Codex CLI

free

OpenAI's lightweight terminal chat interface for code operations

Roo Code

free

Open-source VS Code extension forked from Cline with extra features

Kilo Code

free

Open-source AI coding agent for VS Code and JetBrains supporting 500+ models

Cody

free

AI assistant using Sourcegraph code graph to understand entire codebase

Blackbox AI

freemium

Turn questions into code snippets with real-time autocomplete and debugging

Google AI Studio

free

Another way to vibecode with Gemini - great for experimenting

avante.nvim

open-source

Neovim plugin emulating Cursor AI IDE behavior with AI-driven suggestions

IntelliCode

free

Microsoft's AI-assisted development tool for VS/VS Code

OpenClaw

free

Free personal AI assistant running locally

LingGuang

free

Ant Group's multimodal vibe-coding assistant

Firebase Studio

free

Google's agentic cloud-based dev environment for full-stack AI apps

Zed

free

High-performance code editor designed for collaboration with humans and AI

Google Antigravity

free

Google's agent-first IDE with mission control and multi-agent workflows

Visual Studio Code

free

Free source-code editor with rich extension ecosystem

Goose

open-source

Local on-machine AI agent that allows any LLM and MCP servers as extensions

MyCoder.ai

open-source

Open source AI coding assistant with Git/GitHub integration and parallel execution

RA.Aid

open-source

Standalone coding agent built on LangGraph's agent-based task execution

Gemini CLI

open-source

Open-source AI agent from Google bringing Gemini to your terminal

Qwen Code

open-source

Alibaba's coding agent that lives in the digital world

opencode

open-source

AI coding agent built for the terminal

Crush

open-source

Glamorous AI coding agent for your terminal that generates CLIs

Warp

free

Modern Rust-based terminal with native AI integration

Ralph

open-source

Terminal-first agent loop persisting state via git

mistral-vibe

open-source

Mistral AI's vibe coding tool

vibe-cli

open-source

AI-powered CLI for collaborative coding sessions and workflow automation

langchain-code

open-source

LangChain-based coding agent for AI-assisted development

kimi-cli

open-source

Moonshot AI's CLI for coding tasks and development workflows

VibeSDK

open-source

Open-source AI vibe coding platform built on Cloudflare

vibekit

open-source

Toolkit for building vibe coding applications

Augment Code

paid

Context-aware AI agent for large repos that navigates and writes fixes like a senior dev

Qodo

paid

AI assistant focused on code quality reviews and test generation

Tabnine

paid

Fast AI code completions you can run locally for privacy

Sourcery AI

paid

Automatically refactor Python code to improve readability and performance

Junie

unknown

Chat refactor and generate tests across JetBrains IDEs with context-aware AI

Amp

paid

Frontier coding agent for terminal and editor built by Sourcegraph

Refact.ai

paid

AI assistant specialized in refactoring and technical debt

GoCodeo

paid

Tool focused on generating tests and debugging

Amazon Kiro

paid

AI IDE from AWS for prototype to production

Orchids

unknown

The Vibe Coding IDE

GitHub Copilot CLI

unknown

GitHub Copilot coding agent in terminal with MCP extensibility

Dirstarter

unknown

Developer boilerplate/starter kit for building directory websites (~$5K/mo revenue)