Trying out the best AI Coding Assistants as of Nov 2024
First, let's look for a list. I'm trying to skip Github's Copilot because it's super popular, I want to see the alternatives first. So I found this Youtube video that seemed exhaustive.
From there, I was able to get these 2:
🤖 Code with Zed & Aider - Free Coding Assistants: Replace Cursor and VSCode with Zed, a fast, open-source editor powered by Claude 3.5, or Aider for a prompt-based coding experience. Both are free AI tools for developers looking for an efficient Copilot alternative.
🛠️ Cline & Supermaven - Unleash AI in VSCode: Enhance VSCode with Cline for seamless model integration or Supermaven as a fast, free copilot alternative. Boost productivity without paying for GitHub Copilot!
Upon checking out Reddit posts, I was also able to find Tabnine, Codeium and Cursor.
Edit: I was supposed to check out all mentioned options but somehow I stopped at the first one when I encountered Zed.
Zed IDE
Zed is a lightweight editor produced by the same developers as Atom.
Setting up the Free Claude 3.5 Sonnet
What's amazing is that it comes with a free Claude 3.5 Sonnet model, which I found to be the best model for coding assistants at the moment.
After downloading Zed, you just need to sign in here:
Open the assistant chat, and make sure to select Zed's Claude Sonnet 3.5.
There's no difference between Anthropic's and Zed's Claude 3.5 Sonnet so it's a very good deal.
I've been using this for 2 weeks everyday and so far I've not consumed a lot of credits:
3 Places to use the AI
- On the file itself - no explanations, it just writes code and uses your selected code for context
- On the side panel "AI Assistant" - this one is setup like a chat, and you can reference your files and other stuff. I use this when I'm figuring out something like architecture or playing out scenarios.
- On the terminal - I rarely use AI on this
Possible contexts you can bring on on side panel AI Assistant - file, editor selection, terminal output, etc.
The only limitation I found was working with multiple files, so that's where Aider comes in.
Aider
Aider is a Python package that you install in your project folder. Give it all the files and it will work across all your files!
I used this for the first time when I wanted to refactor my file into several files. I had to buy some credits ($5 minimum) from Anthropic because I wanted to use Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
It's pretty straightforward to use. I run it on Zed's terminal.
Just had a few hiccups with the setup, because it requires Python 3.9 - 3.12 and I had 3.13 installed plus, I'm not familiar with Python.
The only hiccup was that I was too lazy to type specific prompts for my refactoring task, so I ended up doing the refactoring myself. It did the initial structure though!