Coding assistants
The assistants people use to write and edit code: Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, Codex, and open tools like Cline and Aider.
Data last checked: · What changed
| Known for | Best foreditorial rating | Pros & cons | Official site |
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How the ratings work
- Popularity is a 1–5 judgment (halves allowed) of how commonly a product shows up in recent traffic reports, app ranks, or usage leaderboards — relative to the other products on this page, not a computed formula.
- Captions name the source and a “checked Nov 2026” date. If there was no usable source, the caption says “Editorial estimate.”
- Best for is an editorial label of a typical use, not a test score.
- Cost is a five-step scale (Free / $ / $$ / $$$ / $$$$). See “How cost is rated” for the band definitions on this page. Captions cite a source or say the rating is an estimate.
- Scores are relative to the other coding assistants on this page.
How cost is rated
- Cost is rated on the typical individual paid plan most people buy, per month, when we could find a published price this session. If the vendor marks a plan as popular or most popular, that is the plan we use. Otherwise we use the ordinary individual paid plan (not the cheapest limited tier, and not an ultra or teams tier). The caption names the plan. Annual “per month” equivalents are noted when the vendor publishes them. Higher ultra tiers do not set the band.
- Free — no individual paid plan is required for the core product.
- $ — under $15 / month.
- $$ — $15–29 / month.
- $$$ — $30–99 / month.
- $$$$ — $100+ / month, or quote-only with no public individual plan found this session.
- If the product is mainly a usage-based API, or no public individual price turned up, the caption says so and the band is an editorial estimate — never an invented dollar amount. Always confirm current pricing with the vendor.
Sources and limits
Open-source tools cite GitHub star counts (checked November 2026). Commercial tools do not have one public usage table; their stars are a relative judgment with whatever source we could cite. Cursor’s public pricing now sits on the same X Subscription ladder as Grok.
Independence
This site is ad-free and has no affiliate links. Official-site buttons go straight to the vendor. Stars are not paid placement.
About the icons
The first column is meant to look like the product’s app or site icon. Official vendor or App Store app icons are used when we could find one this session. If not, the tile is a generated initials icon in the same rounded-square style.