Free AI Coding Tools in 2026: What Each Free Plan Really Includes
In October 2026 the strongest free AI coding options are GitHub Copilot Free (2,000 completions a month), Google Antigravity (Gemini models under weekly limits), Kiro (50 credits a month), Cursor’s free tier and Zed with your own keys — or Ollama for unlimited local models. Claude Code is not on Claude’s free plan; it starts with Pro.
The free plans at a glance
| Tool | Free allowance | Good to know |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Copilot Free | 2,000 completions a month; limited chat and agent use | VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Vim/Neovim, CLI, github.com |
| Google Antigravity | Unlimited tab completions; agent use under weekly limits | Replaced Gemini Code Assist for individuals in June 2026 |
| Kiro | 50 credits a month | Amazon’s successor to Q Developer; IDE and CLI |
| Cursor Free | Limited agent and chat requests, resetting weekly | Cursor’s own models only |
| Devin Desktop (formerly Windsurf) | A light agent quota; unlimited tab and inline edits | Renamed on 2 June 2026 |
| JetBrains AI Free | 3 AI credits every 30 days | Local models supported |
| Zed Personal | Free with your own API keys or external agents | No hosted models on the free plan |
| Ollama | Unlimited | Open models on your own machine |
Checked against official pricing pages on 17 October 2026. Where a vendor publishes no number — “limited” is common — this post says so rather than guessing.
What changed in 2026
If you last looked at this market in 2025, several names have moved:
- Gemini Code Assist for individuals and the free Google-login tier of Gemini CLI were replaced by Google Antigravity and the Antigravity CLI on 18 June 2026.
- Windsurf became Devin Desktop on 2 June 2026.
- Amazon Q Developer’s IDE plugins stop being supported on 30 April 2027; Kiro is the named successor.
- Supermaven was sunset in November 2025, and Tabnine was acquired by Tricentis, with no free plan listed.
- Continue, the open-source assistant, is no longer actively maintained: its repository is read-only after a final 2.0.0 release.
GitHub Copilot Free
The broadest free option: 2,000 inline completions a month in almost every editor, plus a limited amount of chat and agent use. On the free plan Copilot picks the model for you. It is not available to people who already get Copilot through an organisation.
Verified students get Copilot Student at no cost, and verified teachers and maintainers of popular open-source projects may qualify for Copilot Pro for free. Source: GitHub Copilot plans.
Google Antigravity
Google’s agent-first IDE and CLI. The free Individual plan has unlimited tab completions and command requests, and agent work runs on Gemini models within weekly limits that Google does not put a number on. Source: Antigravity pricing.
Claude: free chat, paid Claude Code
The free Claude plan includes Sonnet and Haiku on the web, desktop and mobile, with a usage limit that resets every five hours — good for explaining code or reviewing a snippet. Claude Code, the coding agent, is not on the free plan: it is included in every paid plan, starting with Pro at $20 a month ($17 a month billed annually). Source: Claude pricing.
If you do use Claude Code, start with a good CLAUDE.md and a couple of hooks.
Kiro, Cursor and Devin Desktop
- Kiro — 50 credits a month, with Claude Sonnet and open-weight models under rate limits, in a VS Code-based IDE and a CLI. Source: Kiro pricing.
- Cursor Free — limited agent and chat requests from a pool that resets weekly, using Cursor’s own models only. Older Hobby plans carry on for existing customers. Source: Cursor pricing.
- Devin Desktop — the former Windsurf editor: a light agent quota and limited models, but unlimited tab completions and inline edits. Source: Devin pricing.
JetBrains AI and Zed
- JetBrains AI Free — 3 AI credits every 30 days in JetBrains IDEs 2025.1 or later, and you can point it at local models instead. Source: JetBrains AI licensing.
- Zed Personal — free for good if you bring your own API keys or an external agent; Zed hosts no models on this plan. Source: Zed pricing.
OpenAI Codex
ChatGPT’s free plan lets you try Codex on quick coding tasks in the desktop app as it rolls out; the CLI, IDE and cloud features are listed under the paid Plus plan. The Codex CLI itself is open source. Source: Codex pricing.
Unlimited and private: run models locally
Every hosted free plan has a ceiling. Open models running on your own machine have none, and your code never leaves it. Ollama makes that a one-command install, and its official VS Code extension adds local models to VS Code’s chat. The full setup is in Run AI models locally with Ollama.
A sensible free stack
- Completions: GitHub Copilot Free in your usual editor.
- Agent work: Antigravity or Kiro, for the larger tasks the month’s allowance covers.
- Anything private, or unlimited: a coding model in Ollama, such as
qwen2.5-coder:7b. - Questions and reviews: the free plan of Claude or Gemini in the browser.
Whatever you use, the habits matter more than the tool — see AI coding tips that actually work.
Free AI coding tools FAQ
- What is the best free AI coding assistant in 2026?
- For most people, GitHub Copilot Free: 2,000 completions a month in almost every editor. Add Google Antigravity or Kiro for agent work, and Ollama for unlimited private use.
- Is Claude Code free?
- No. Claude Code is included in Claude’s paid plans, starting with Pro. The free Claude plan covers chat on the web, desktop and mobile.
- What happened to Gemini Code Assist’s free tier?
- On 18 June 2026 Google replaced Gemini Code Assist for individuals, and Gemini CLI’s free Google-login tier, with Google Antigravity, which has its own free Individual plan.
- Can I use AI for coding with no limits for free?
- Yes, by running an open model locally with Ollama. The limit becomes your hardware rather than a monthly quota.