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How toJul 2, 20262 min read

How to pick a free AI coding assistant you'll keep on for a year

Inline completion, chat-with-repo, model quality — what to compare when picking a free AI coding assistant for daily dev work.

  • #code
  • #ide
  • #evaluation

What 'free' actually buys you

Free tiers of code assistants usually include:

  • Inline autocomplete on the file you're editing.
  • A modest monthly completion quota.
  • Chat with the active file (sometimes whole workspace).
  • IDE support for VS Code and JetBrains; Vim/Neovim varies.

What they usually don't include: long multi-file refactors, deep repository context, custom model routing, and team analytics. If your week needs any of those, plan for a paid tier or a self-hosted model.

Six honest criteria

  1. Model quality on your language. Models rank differently across Python, TypeScript, Rust, etc. — pick based on yours.
  2. Latency. Inline suggestions need to feel instant. Anything above ~300ms becomes friction.
  3. Context window. Long files and large repos need more context than the default.
  4. Telemetry. Can the vendor train on your completions? Most say no by default — confirm.
  5. Local fallback. Local models exist; some IDE plugins fall back when offline.
  6. Openness. Open-source completions can be self-hosted; proprietary options usually can't.

Decision shortcut

If you ship daily, pick the assistant with the best autocomplete and accept a paid plan when you outgrow the free tier. If you ship weekly, a free cloud tool plus an open-source local model gives you the best of both — automate the boring, keep the human in the loop for the interesting.