AI tools for building apps, and what each one is for

These pages are the evidence behind the quiz. Read a tool when you want the tiers, the limit, and the kind of project it is bad at.

Cursor

Editor / CLI

An editor with agents, built for people who can read a diff.

Free tier · paid from $8/mo

Claude Code

Editor / CLI

A terminal coding agent that shares your Claude plan.

No useful free tier · paid from $20/mo

OpenAI Codex

Editor / CLI

A coding agent included with ChatGPT, not a separate app subscription.

Free tier · paid from $20/mo

GitHub Copilot

Editor / CLI

An IDE assistant at $10 a month, if you already live in GitHub.

Free tier · paid from $10/mo

Lovable

Browser

A browser builder for web apps, with a hard monthly cap on the free plan.

Free tier · paid from $25/mo

Bolt.new

Browser

A browser builder with a generous free token pool and a $25 Pro plan.

Free tier · paid from $25/mo

Replit

Browser

A browser IDE and agent, closest thing here to an all-in-one starter.

Free tier · paid from $20/mo

v0

Browser

A browser UI builder for React interfaces and landing pages.

Free tier · paid from $30/user/mo

Windsurf

Editor / CLI

The editor formerly called Windsurf, now sold as Devin Desktop.

Free tier · paid from $20/mo

Google Antigravity

Editor / CLI

A free agent IDE, with higher quotas on Google AI Pro and Ultra.

Free tier · paid from $19.99/mo

Kiro

Editor / CLI

An agentic IDE that turns a prompt into a spec, then into a diff.

Free tier · paid from $20/user/mo

Jules

Browser

An async agent that takes a GitHub task and opens a pull request.

Free tier · paid from $19.99/mo

Amp

Editor / CLI

A coding agent you can run free on your own machine, or in Amp's cloud.

Free tier · paid from $20/mo