Free AI coding tools, verified October 2026
Free code editors, AI agents, and LLM router credits for developers.
41 offers checked and verified · Browse all 231 free AI offers · Changes (RSS)
Right now the catalog has 64 coding tools, sorted by how much you get for free. By type, the coding tools split into 36 free tiers, 13 student programs, 12 credit grants, 2 startup programs and 1 fully free tool. 41 of the 64 coding tools were verified by a person, most recently on Oct 19, 2026; 23 are listed and waiting for a first check. 61 of the coding tools need no credit card (AgentRouter Free AI Credits, Cursor Free Plan and Cline Free Models among them); 3 ask for one. In the 7 days to Oct 29, 2026, the coding tools had 10 with changed terms (Token Harbor Free Allowance, OpenRouter Free AI Models and 8 more). First among the coding tools: AgentRouter Free AI Credits ($25), Cursor Free Plan and Cline Free Models. Coming end dates among the coding tools: SmarToken $5 Signup Credit on Dec 31, 2026. Across these coding tools the catalog records 79 free models; the most listed are DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, deepseek-v4-flash and GLM-5.3-Flash.
The short answer
Yes - several AI coding tools are genuinely free right now, not just on trial.
- Free plans: Cursor's Hobby plan (no expiration), Cline's built-in open-weight models, Devin's free tier for individual engineers, CodeRabbit for open-source PRs.
- Credits: AgentRouter ($200 for new developers), plus smaller sign-up grants from Token Harbor and YepAPI.
- Bring your own stack: the free tiers of the Gemini API, Mistral, and OpenRouter's rotating zero-cost models plug into any editor or CLI agent.
The catch: free plans cap usage, credits eventually run dry, and a few signups demand a card - the table shows which. Students get a separate set of deals on our student hub.
All coding tools, best free value first
Tick 2–4 offers to compare them side by side.
| Compare Tool | What's free | Key limits | Card? | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $25one-time | $25 per daily check-in · $50 per invite · Claude and GPT models: limited daily supply,… More: AgentRouter Free AI Credits | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | Limited agent requests and limited chat requests · Cursor Agent included; cloud agents,… More: Cursor Free Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free credits | Rotating, limited-time free model promotions · Limited usage quota per promotion (amount… More: Cline Free Models | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Light agent coding quota · Limited model availability · Unlimited inline edits and Tab… More: Devin Free Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $500one-time | $500 grants awarded per quarter, on a rolling basis · Applicants need an active GitHub… More: Trelis AI Grants | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $24012 months | Free while GitHub student status is active · SMS authentication not included | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| $1012 months | 12 months of Zed Pro, then downgrade to Free · $10/month in AI token credits · Unlimited… More: Zed Pro for Students | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | One-time credit per eligible account · Promotional balance; cannot be withdrawn as cash… More: SmarToken $5 Signup Credit | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | $5 of credits every 30 days per team · Free credits start on your first AI Gateway… More: Vercel AI Gateway Free Tier | Card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $5one-time | One-time $5 credit; no recurring free tier · 203 models included with one API key ·… More: YepAPI Free $5 Credit | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| $1one-time | $1 once per person for eligible Google, GitHub, or Microsoft signups · No card required;… More: Browser Use $1 Signup Credit | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100M tokens | 100M free tokens per new account, one-time · No payment details required to start ·… More: Inception - 100M Free Tokens for Mercury 3 | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 30M tokens/monthresets monthly | 30M tokens/month on the free tier (input + output, incl. reasoning) · 128K context,… More: IteraCompute free Qwen3.8-27B | No card | Verified Oct 19, 2026 | |
| 15M tokens | 15,000,000 Free.ai tokens granted per accepted startup · Granted tokens have no expiry… More: Free.ai Startup Grant | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 300K tokens/monthresets monthly | 20 CUH per month for watsonx.ai Runtime · 1,000 tokens = 1 RU · 100 document text… More: IBM watsonx.ai Lite Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100K tokens/dayresets daily | 100,000 tokens per 24 hours with a free token (input + output combined) · Free token: 1… More: LLM7.io Free Tier | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 1,000 credits/monthresets monthly | 1,000 credits/month for 12 months · Credits do not roll over month to month · No add-on… More: Kiro for Students | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 300 credits/monthresets monthly | 300 credits per month on the free plan, hard limit (no extra credits or auto recharge) ·… More: Netlify free plan | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| 100 credits | 7-day free trial with 100 credits total · Credits work in both Verdent for VS Code and… More: Verdent Free Trial | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 100 credits/monthresets monthly | 250 welcome credits on signup, valid for 14 days · 100 base credits/month on Free plan;… More: WorkBuddy Free Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 50 credits/monthresets monthly | Unused credits do not carry over · 100 credits equal $1 of usage · Free tier covers… More: Alysis Code Free Tier | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 50 requests/dayresets daily | 20 requests per minute on all free variants · 50 requests per day for accounts that have… More: OpenRouter Free AI Models | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 30 hours/dayresets daily | Usage is measured in hours; models other than MiMo v2.6 Flash Slow carry a multiplier… More: Freebuff Free Coding Agents | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 6 months6 months | 6 months of Pro-resources access, one-time per account · Education plan applied only… More: Appwrite Education plan | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| 12 months12 months | One-year license via the GitHub Student Pack | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| 12 months12 months | One-year license, renewable by re-applying · For learning and academic work | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| 12 months12 months | Yearly Professional plan only · Requires Education Verified status · 200 one-time… More: Dify for Education | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Student program | Free while student status is active; GitHub reevaluates eligibility every month · Auto… More: GitHub Copilot free for students | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Student program | Application review required before approval · Academic use only · No licenses issued… More: GitLab Ultimate free for education | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| 12 months12 months | One-year license via the GitHub Student Pack · Live plan only, 1 parallel session (no… More: TestMu AI (LambdaTest) student plan | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Student program | 500 GB data ingest per month · 3 full platform users · Free while student status holds | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Student program | Free only while the GitHub Student Pack is active | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Azure $200 credit valid for the first 30 days · Azure free services limited to 1 year ·… More: Visual Studio Dev Essentials | No card | Verified Oct 13, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free text models: agnes-2.5-flash, agnes-3.0-flash · Free image models:… More: Agnes AI Free API | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Unlimited text chats (model not specified) · Limited file uploads · Limited image… More: ChatGPT Free Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Public repositories only — 'if anyone can read your repository's code, it's open source'… More: CodeRabbit Free for Open Source | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Catalog of free and low-cost models; which models are free changes over time · Unlimited… More: Evot Free Models | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | No expiration · Free models include gemini-3.8-flash, gemini-3.6-flash,… More: Google Gemini Developer API Free Tier | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Studio Free mode: API access with no card, within per-model usage and rate limits · No… More: Mistral AI Free Plan | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Limited time — every free model is marked 'available on OpenCode for a limited time' ·… More: OpenCode Zen Free Models | Card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Free tierongoing | Free models: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, MiMo V2.6 Flash, TH-Rudder (rotating lineup) · Free… More: Token Harbor Free Allowance | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| Student program | $20 of credits per month for 1 year · Active schools include Stanford, Harvard,… More: v0 Free for Students (1 Year) | No card | Verified Oct 12, 2026 | |
| 10M tokens/monthresets monthly | 10M weighted tokens per day on free models · 5 requests per minute on the free plan ·… More: APInex Free AI Models | No card | Listed | |
| 1M requests/monthresets monthly | 20 GiB egress per month · 10 hours active CPU per month · 150 GiB-hours memory time · 10… More: Deno Deploy Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 500K tokens/monthresets monthly | 80 requests/minute and 100,000 tokens/minute on the free plan · Free plan covers all… More: CleanAPIs free monthly tokens | No card | Re-checking | |
| 100K requests/dayresets daily | 10 ms CPU time per invocation · Static asset requests free and unlimited · Limited… More: Cloudflare Workers Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 10K credits/dayresets daily | 10,000 Neurons per day free on Workers Free and Workers Paid; resets daily at 00:00 UTC… More: Cloudflare Workers AI Free Tier | No card | Listed | |
| 10K requests/dayresets daily | 1 free database · 10,000 queries/updates per day · Max 200M vectors x dimensions · Max… More: Upstash Vector Free Tier | No card | Listed | |
| 2,500 requests | 2,500 free queries for new accounts, one-time · No credit card required · Credits are… More: Serper 2,500 Free Google Search Queries | No card | Listed | |
| 1,000 requests/monthresets monthly | $5 in free credits every month on each plan, applied automatically · Search plan: $5 per… More: Brave Search API Free Monthly Credits | Card | Listed | |
| 1,000 credits/monthresets monthly (1st) | 1,000 API credits per month on the free Researcher plan · Credits reset on the first day… More: Tavily Free Researcher Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 100 hours/monthresets monthly | Up to 100 projects, 10 branches each · 100 CU-hours of compute per project per month ·… More: Neon Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 5 GB | 100 databases · 5 GB storage · 500 million rows read per month · 10 million rows written… More: Turso Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 5 GB | 5 GB storage (about 1M 768-dim vectors) · 2.5M vCUs per month · Up to 5 collections ·… More: Zilliz Cloud Free Cluster | No card | Listed | |
| 2 GB | Up to 2 GB storage, 5 serverless indexes, 100 namespaces per index · Up to 1M read units… More: Pinecone Starter Plan | No card | Listed | |
| 0.5 GB | 1 free M0 cluster per project: 512 MB storage (documents plus indexes), shared RAM and… More: MongoDB Atlas Free Cluster (M0) | No card | Listed | |
| 0.5 GB | 2 active free projects · 500 MB database size per project · Shared CPU, 500 MB RAM ·… More: Supabase Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| Fully freeongoing | Progress is saved in the browser only · Certification-prep tracks do not issue… More: AI Engineering from Scratch | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | Free text models: GLM-4.7-Flash (200K context, 128K output), GLM-4.5-Flash (128K/96K),… More: BigModel Free GLM Flash Models | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | 30 million queried vector dimensions per month · 5 million stored vector dimensions ·… More: Cloudflare Vectorize Free Tier | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | Starter usage amount not published; resets monthly from the signup date and does not… More: Ollama Cloud Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | 1 single-node cluster: 0.5 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 4 GB disk · About 1M vectors at 768… More: Qdrant Cloud Free Tier | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | 1 cluster per user (shared deployment) · 100,000 objects · 1 GB memory, 10 GB disk · 1… More: Weaviate Cloud Free Plan | No card | Listed | |
| Free tierongoing | Limited time · Free models: Hy3, Mimo2.5, GLM 5.3 Flash, Qwen3.8 Flash | No card | Listed |
Top picks
- AgentRouter for most developers: $200 of credit that works with AI-assisted coding tools and LLM routing APIs - enough to evaluate paid-tier models seriously.
- Cursor's Hobby plan for a permanent editor - the strongest no-expiration free tier.
- Cline if you would rather keep your editor and drop in free open-weight models.
- Devin's free plan for teams evaluating agents before committing budget.
Shopping for organization-wide seats? The startup hub owns those programs instead.
How we verify
Rows marked Verified were tested by a person, not scraped. Listed rows are live offers still waiting on their first check.
- We sign up and claim the credit or plan with a fresh account, then run real coding tasks against it.
- We record what is actually free: usage caps, model lists, and whether a card is demanded.
- We re-check monthly. Entries are re-dated when something changes; offers that turn dark or bait-and-switch are pulled and, if dishonest by design, named on our scam list.
Frequently asked questions
How many free AI coding tools does aifree.dev list?
64 right now: 41 verified by a person and 23 listed, waiting for a first check. By type: 36 free tiers, 13 student programs, 12 credit grants, 2 startup programs and 1 fully free tool. The newest verification is from Oct 19, 2026.
Which coding tools need no credit card?
61 of 64, among them AgentRouter Free AI Credits, Cursor Free Plan and Cline Free Models. 3 ask for a card, often to verify identity or to bill usage past the free part. The "Card?" column of the table marks each row.
What changed in free AI coding tools this week?
In the 7 days to Oct 29, 2026: 10 with changed terms (Token Harbor Free Allowance, OpenRouter Free AI Models and 8 more). Every change is on the hub's changes page and its RSS feed.
Are these AI coding tools really free?
Yes - each entry was verified with a real signup. Some are permanent free plans like Cursor Hobby or Cline's bundled models; others are one-time credits such as AgentRouter's $200. The "What's free" column states which is which, and the verified date shows when we last confirmed it.
How long do free coding credits last?
It varies. Sign-up credits like AgentRouter's $200 stay until spent, monthly allowances reset each cycle, and some trials expire on a fixed date. The "Key limits" column and each offer page record the duration we verified.
Which free AI coding tools work in my country?
Most are globally available, but a few providers restrict sign-ups by region or require a local phone number. We note regional limits on the offer page when providers state them; if your country is not mentioned, check the tool's own signup page.
What is the best free Copilot alternative?
Cursor Hobby and Cline are the closest free substitutes for GitHub Copilot inside an editor, and AgentRouter's credits can route coding models into almost any agent or CLI. CodeRabbit adds free AI code review for public repositories.
Side-by-side comparisons
Ranked charts
Step-by-step guides
Related hubs
Last verified Oct 19, 2026 · 64 offers checked · 42 re-checked this month · Providers that fail our checks land on the scam list.