Free AI Coding Tools: Student, OSS & Trial Access (2026 List)

Tip: you don’t necessarily have to spend big money on AI tools for coding.

Here’s a (fairly comprehensive) list of tools with FREE access:

Cursor Pro — (for students for 1 year)
Google AI Pro — (for students for 1 year)
Codex FREE (a free ChatGPT account gives access to Codex)
OpenAI Student ($100 in API credits)
OpenAI for OSS maintainers ($200 Pro subscription)
Gemini CLI (250–1000 requests per day on G3 Flash with a Google account)
logingithub.com/login — (as long as you have student status)
Anthropic for OSS maintainers ($200 max under the subscription)
OpenRouter — (many free models via an API key)
Nvidia NIM — up to 6000 free requests, works with Opencode

Kilo Code — regularly provides access to free models
Mistral Vibe — free access to the Codestral API
Antigravity IDE — limited free access with a Google account
Kiro IDE/CLI — 50 free requests per month + 500 credits upon registration

Less impressive, but worth mentioning:

GitHub Copilot — 1000 completions + 50 messages per month
Amazon Q Developer — 1000 completions + 50 messages per month

There are also trials from various providers.

OR, as many people write "BUY YOURSELF A GPU" 👂