Top 20 AI coding agents

Small terminal coding agent you can reshape with extensions; best harness score in one independent study.

Best for Developers who want a small, free agent they can shape around their own modelYou give up No default model; you bring and pay for your own key or subscription

Free open-source coding agent for 75+ model providers; scored 54 with GLM-5.3. Skip it for one flat monthly plan.

Best for Developers who want a free agent and the choice of 75+ model providersYou give up Scores below Codex and Claude Code; several free Zen models may train on prompts

Open coding agent you can run locally or in their cloud; scored near the top in an independent harness study

Best for Teams who want to self-host an open agent, or try it free in the cloudYou give up Free cloud tier allows 10 conversations a day; the app has had no release since July

Highest published score on a coding-agent test, from $20/month; OpenAI's Codex scores close for far less per task.

Best for Developers who already pay for Claude and want the strongest current coding modelYou give up No free plan; costs far more per task than Codex, which scores close

Cloud and terminal agent that pairs a top model with a cheaper helper model to cut cost

Best for Teams that hand tickets from Slack or Linear to an agent that returns pull requestsYou give up Usage quotas are not published, so it is hard to know how far $20 goes

Cheapest way into a near-top coding agent; the best model needs the $50 plan

Best for Coders on a tight budget who still want a strong agentYou give up Only 10 to 50 prompts per five hours; a contributor tier trains on your data

Google's free terminal coding agent, replacing Gemini CLI; turn off data use in settings if code privacy matters.

Best for Anyone who wants to try a terminal coding agent for free, or who used Gemini CLIYou give up Pricing page doesn't name models or limits; some Gemini CLI features are missing

Close to the top coding-agent score at a fraction of the cost per task; needs ChatGPT Plus or an API key.

Best for ChatGPT Plus subscribers who want a terminal coding agent at no extra costYou give up Default model unnamed; Plus limits vary widely and personal plans train by default

Low-cost terminal agent on Grok 4.7, well behind the leaders on current tests

Best for Trying a terminal agent cheaply at $8 a month, or free with limitsYou give up Solves about 38% of terminal tasks against about 65% for Claude Code

Open-source terminal agent for Kimi members; behind the leaders and opting out of training takes an email

Best for Kimi Plus members who want an open-source agent on Kimi K3You give up Needs a paid Kimi plan, and the usage quota is not published

JetBrains' agent for its IDEs and the terminal; a natural pick if you already use IntelliJ or PyCharm

Best for JetBrains IDE users, free if they bring their own model keysYou give up Not scored yet: its last independent result is older than 90 days

AI code editor with a cheap in-house model; default model unstated and trains on code unless Privacy Mode is on.

Best for People who want an AI code editor and are happy to choose the model themselvesYou give up Trains on your code unless Privacy Mode is on; default model not named

Agent for terminal, IDE and cloud machines aimed at teams; no current independent result

Best for Teams willing to pay for an agent that also runs on cloud machinesYou give up No free plan listed, from $20 a month; not scored yet

Cheapest paid coding agent at $10/month, CLI on the free plan; no independent test, and personal plans train by default.

Best for Anyone wanting a paid coding agent for the least money, or a free one to tryYou give up Free users can't pick models, and Claude and Codex agents need Pro+ at $39

Free open-source coding agent; you pick the model and pay the provider. Quality depends on the model you choose.

Best for VS Code users who already pay for a model and want a free open agentYou give up Quality depends on your model; a recent security flaw means updating to 3.0.30

Open agent for VS Code, JetBrains and CLI at provider prices; owned by Anaconda since July 2026

Best for VS Code and JetBrains users who want an open agent at model makers' own ratesYou give up 5% fee on credit purchases; update past a security flaw fixed in 7.4.1

Codex tasks that keep running in OpenAI's cloud, on Plus and up; no independent test of the cloud side yet.

Best for ChatGPT Plus or Business users who want coding tasks to run unattendedYou give up Not on Free, Go or an API key alone; cloud tasks use more of your plan allowance

Free coding agent app on Gemini Flash; Claude 5.5 needs AI Pro at $19.99/month. Change the data setting first.

Best for Trying a free coding agent app with several agents running at onceYou give up Free plan runs on weaker Gemini Flash; top Claude models need AI Pro at $19.99

Agentic code editor from Cognition, renamed from Windsurf on 2 Jun 2026; included in Devin plans

Best for Devin subscribers who also want a code editor at no extra costYou give up Not scored yet: no independent result in the last 90 days

Terminal with a built-in coding agent; the free plan works with your own model keys

Best for People who want a modern terminal with an agent, free with their own model keysYou give up Not scored yet; cloud agents are billed separately from the plans