Devin: web-based agent, designed to feel like hiring a software dev - used to cost $500/mo 😱, but now only $20/mo - autonomously completes tasks end-to-end, then opens PRs - easy to spin up multiple Devins simultaneously - Gumroad says Devin writes 41% of their PRs

AI Coding Tools in a Nutshell 📕 April 2025, Developer Edition The 9 most powerful tools developers are using to go from 1x to 10x (bookmark this for your toolkit):

Codex CLI: @OpenAI's new coding agent, runs in the terminal - released *YESTERDAY* so the jury is still out - uses OpenAI's powerful new o3 and o4-mini models 🔥 - completely open source - multimodal, supports passing in screenshots and diagrams

: AI IDE, fork of VS Code - very popular, strong community + tutorials - gold standard AI tab completion, ⌘K inline editor 🥇 - powerful agent kicked off vibe coding trend - $20/mo unlimited plan, limits tokens to save $ (or usage-based costs w high-quality MAX mode)

: VS Code extension, sidebar agent, 1.2M installs - install in Cursor/Windsurf/VS Code - sends every token to LLMs, quality is high but so are costs - top-tier MCP marketplace, simple one-click installs ⭐️ - agent can see your Chrome browser, inspect elements, read logs

: VS Code extension, sidebar agent, 380k+ installs - fork of Cline, adds new features, but no MCP marketplace - create custom modes for fine-grained control in your repo, very powerful - Boomerang Tasks: breaks down complex projects, delegates subtasks to assistants 🔥

: "code prompting app," alternative to code editors - super precise file and context selection ✂️ - pass tons of context, 1-shot tasks, no agent required - the future? devs are ditching IDEs/agents and just using RepoPrompt - native Mac app, Windows/Linux coming

: fork of VS Code, 2.5M installs - getting acquired by OpenAI?? 😯 - competes with Cursor: uniquely implemented tab completion, inline editing, agent - built-in 1-click "deploy to the web" button - AI agent available as plugin for JetBrains, VS Code, Vim, Emacs, etc

Claude Code: @AnthropicAI's coding agent that lives in your terminal - released in Feb 2025, only works with Claude models - AI coding from your terminal, no need for an IDE 🧑‍💻 - no learning curve, easy to install and use - great for anything in the terminal, not just code

Aider: the original terminal-based coding agent, 2M installs - high appeal for devs who prefer the command line over IDEs - integrates with pretty much any LLM, not just OpenAI or Anthropic 🧩 - cleverly tuned to adopt the role of someone you're pair programming with

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@DevinAI Devin costs 4-5x per task compared to cline FYI. For the more hands off nature it might be worth it but it also cannot tackle tasks above a non trivial level of complexity.

@DevinAI And then it go mess up your whole code and now you must look for the problem

@DevinAI I just built a similar tool for $0 using Notion + Tally + Zapier. Seeing a lot of overlap—thanks for this thread