162 AI tools reviewed with real pricing, quickstart code, and honest gotchas
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Gretel is the gold standard for synthetic data, period. If you need to turn a sensitive customer CSV into a safe, usable training set without leaking PII, this is the tool. Since their acquisition by Nvidia in 2025, the compute backing is immense, but the tool remains developer-centric. Use it if you need high-quality synthetic tabular or text data for RAG/fine-tuning. Do NOT use it if you are looking for a manual labeling platform (like Labelbox) or if you just need simple random data mocking.
Argilla is the 'Git for data' designed specifically for ML engineers building LLMs. Unlike traditional labeling tools that prioritize manual annotation UIs for large non-technical teams, Argilla focuses on programmatic curation and RLHF workflows deeply integrated with the Hugging Face stack. It's the perfect choice if you live in Python and need to fine-tune Llama or Mistral, but avoid it if you just need a simple bounding-box tool for a non-technical outsourcing team.
Windsurf is the 'thinking developer's' alternative to Cursor. While Cursor feels like a hyper-fast autocomplete on steroids, Windsurf's 'Cascade' flow acts more like a junior engineer who actually reads the documentation before typing. At $15/month, it undercuts the competition while offering superior privacy controls (zero retention by default). It's the best choice for enterprise devs who need deep context awareness, but speed demons might find the agentic 'thinking' pauses frustrating.
Trae is basically 'Cursor for free,' subsidized by ByteDance. It offers an incredible deal for individual developers: unrestricted access to top-tier models like Claude 3.5 Sonnet and GPT-4o without the $20/month price tag. However, you pay with your data—chat logs are retained permanently, and codebase indexing happens on their servers. Use it for side projects or learning; avoid it strictly if you are working on proprietary corporate IP.
Tabnine is the 'adult in the room' for AI coding. While Copilot and Cursor chase the latest features, Tabnine focuses heavily on security, compliance, and flexible deployment (including fully air-gapped on-premise). Use this if your company's legal team blocks Copilot; avoid it if you're a solo dev wanting the absolute smartest 'agentic' features for free.
Supermaven is the speed demon of copilots, delivering a 1-million-token context window with barely perceptible latency. It's the perfect tool for developers who want the 'Cursor experience' (long context, diff-awareness) without leaving VS Code or Neovim. However, its recent acquisition by Anysphere (Cursor) casts some doubt on its long-term standalone innovation. Use it if you crave speed and context; avoid it if you need offline privacy or unlimited chat.
Replit Agent is the closest thing to 'magic' for zero-to-one prototyping, capable of spinning up a Flask/PostgreSQL app in under 3 minutes. It’s a powerhouse for solo devs and PMs who want to bypass the 'npm install' hell and go straight to a deployed URL. However, the $25/month price tag and heavy vendor lock-in mean it's strictly for those who want to live in the Replit cloud; if you need a local IDE or complex enterprise integrations, stick to Cursor.
The 'default' choice just got its mojo back by adding Claude 3.5 Sonnet support, effectively neutralizing its biggest criticism. While it still operates as a plugin rather than a native AI editor (unlike Cursor), the new 'Copilot Edits' feature bridges the gap for multi-file refactoring. It is the safe, reliable choice for teams who need compliance and broad language support, but power users might still crave the speed and depth of an AI-native IDE.
Devin is not a copilot; it's a remote junior engineer that lives in the cloud. With a $500/month price tag for teams, it's priced to replace human hours rather than just augment typing speed. It excels at tedious, multi-step tasks like migrations and test coverage where you want to 'fire and forget,' but solo devs might find the pay-per-compute model ($20 start) unpredictable compared to flat-rate tools.
Cursor has effectively won the 'AI Editor' war of 2025/2026 by daring to fork VS Code rather than just plugging into it. Its 'Composer' feature, which edits multiple files simultaneously, and its agentic capabilities make Copilot feel antiquated. If you are a solo dev or startup speed-runner, this is non-negotiable; however, strict enterprise environments might still balk at sending full codebases to Anysphere's cloud indexers.
Claude Code is the best pair programmer for terminal junkies who want an AI that actually *does* things, not just suggests them. Unlike Copilot, it runs commands and fixes its own mistakes. However, if you're afraid of the command line or on a tight API budget, stick to Cursor.
Augment Code is the 'senior engineer' of AI assistants—it actually reads your docs and understands your spaghetti code before making suggestions. It shines in massive enterprise repos where context is king, blowing standard autocomplete out of the water. However, the 2025 shift to a credit-based pricing model is a major gotcha; solo devs or heavy agents users might find their bills inflating rapidly compared to flat-rate competitors like Cursor.
