The Complete Vibe Coding Tool Landscape: From Cursor to CodeBuddy — How to Choose Among Nine Leading Tools

What Is Vibe Coding?

The concept of Vibe Coding was first introduced by OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy in February 2025. The core idea is to "go with the flow and forget about the code itself." Karpathy described an entirely new programming paradigm: developers rely entirely on large language models, describe their requirements in natural language, let AI generate the code, and simply "accept all suggestions." The fundamental shift here is that developers go from being "people who write code" to "people who describe intent."

But today, these tools have evolved far beyond their original definition — they've progressed from AI coding assistants into general-purpose agents. A General Agent represents a milestone in the AI field's pursuit of AGI: when AI is no longer limited to a single task (like generating code) but can understand complex instructions, invoke multiple tools, and autonomously plan and execute steps, it evolves from an "assistant" into an "agent."

To put it in perspective, today's Vibe Coding tools can take over your computer and help you open software like Photoshop or video editors to complete tasks. It's like how phones were originally invented for communication but have long since transcended that purpose. The ability of these tools to control desktop applications, call APIs, and manage file systems is a direct manifestation of general agent capabilities evolving.

Virtually every major tech company worth mentioning has launched its own Vibe Coding tool, which sends a clear signal: AI-powered programming is a fiercely contested battleground. According to industry analysis, the global developer community exceeds 30 million people, and Vibe Coding is expanding that group to include anyone with basic logical thinking skills — potentially reaching hundreds of millions of users. AI coding tools serve as both the best showcase for LLM capabilities (since code generation can be instantly verified as correct or incorrect) and a critical gateway to capturing the developer ecosystem. This is the underlying logic driving every major company to compete in this space.

A Deep Dive into Nine Leading Vibe Coding Tools

1. Cursor: The OG AI Coding Pioneer, Losing Its Shine

Cursor was one of the earliest AI coding assistants, created by a team of four young prodigies. They initially worked in the CAD space but quickly pivoted after seeing the ChatGPT explosion. Reportedly, Elon Musk attempted to acquire the company for $60 billion — the business logic behind that figure being that whoever controls the developer workflow entry point holds the most valuable position in the AI era.

Strengths: Supports multiple top-tier models including the GPT series, Claude series, and Gemini series, offering flexible model selection. These LLMs are capable of handling programming tasks because they've "read" billions of lines of open-source code on GitHub during pre-training, using the Transformer architecture's self-attention mechanism to understand code syntax structures, function call relationships, and logical dependencies. Multi-model support means users can choose the most suitable model for different tasks.

Weaknesses: The subscription costs $20/month with very limited quotas. Heavy users should budget around $100/month. Given the current competitive landscape, Cursor's cost-effectiveness has declined significantly.

2. CodeBuddy: The Best Starting Point for Complete Beginners

CodeBuddy is an AI coding tool from Tencent — a true "paradise for budget-conscious users."

Core Strengths:

• Register with a Chinese phone number and get free credits
• Supports the latest Zhipu GLM series models (currently the ceiling for domestic coding capabilities)
• When credits run out, you can re-register with a different number
• Available in both international and domestic versions, with the domestic version offering more generous credits

Important Tip: Make sure to select the GLM model! The Zhipu GLM series uses a proprietary GLM architecture (General Language Model). Unlike GPT's unidirectional autoregressive approach, GLM uses an autoregressive blank-filling pre-training method, with targeted optimizations for code generation and comprehension in Chinese contexts. This is the technical reason why GLM performs exceptionally well in domestic Vibe Coding scenarios, while other domestic models built into CodeBuddy have noticeably weaker coding capabilities. Currently, using the GLM model doesn't require queuing.

For non-professional programmers, CodeBuddy is the undisputed best choice for getting started with Vibe Coding.

3. Codex (OpenAI): The Ceiling for General-Purpose Agents

Currently the hottest AI coding tool, it has evolved into a true general-purpose agent.

Capabilities:

• Core AI programming features
• Rich plugin ecosystem: image generation, video editing, presentation creation
• Supports remote computer control from your phone
• Virtually limitless functionality

Limitations: The official subscription is $20/month and only supports OpenAI's own GPT series models. Some argue that without products like Codex, OpenAI might no longer be in the game. This isn't an unreasonable take — in an era where LLM capabilities are increasingly commoditized, the ability to translate model capabilities into user-perceivable product experiences is what determines commercial success or failure.

4. Tongyi Lingma (Alibaba): A Solid but Unremarkable Entry-Level Option

Uses Alibaba's own Qwen series models (latest being Qwen 3.7), with middling coding capabilities. The Qwen series performs well on general tasks but still lags behind top-tier models like Claude and GPT-4 in complex programming scenarios. It offers generous free credits, making it suitable for beginners who want to get a feel for AI-assisted programming.

5. Kilo: The Only Way to Use Top Foreign Models for Free

Kilo is currently the only coding tool that lets you use top-tier foreign AI models for free. Register with a Google email to get free credits, with support for models like Claude Sonnet 4. Reportedly, a paid subscription unlocks the Claude Opus series. Anthropic's Claude series has earned an outstanding reputation in programming because Anthropic specifically strengthened the model's long-context reasoning capabilities during training, enabling it to maintain consistency across projects with tens of thousands of lines of code — a critical ability for large-scale project development.

6. Trae (ByteDance): The Ceiling for Domestic AI Coding Capabilities

A product from ByteDance, available in both international and domestic versions.

Domestic Version:

• Free to use
• Supports the latest GLM series models (but requires queuing)
• Testing shows smooth usage after 2 AM; during the day, you might be thousands of places back in the queue
• Other domestic models don't require queuing but have limited coding capabilities

The queuing phenomenon reflects the scarcity of GPU computing resources. High-performance models like GLM require substantial GPU memory for inference, and free user requests during peak hours exceed server capacity, necessitating a queue.

International Version: Powerful capabilities but no free credits — requires top-up. If you're going to pay, you might as well go with Codex.

7. Windsurf: Context Window Too Short, Poor Experience

A veteran international AI coding tool that offered free credits in previous years, but its extremely short context window results in a poor user experience.

The context window is a critical technical metric for evaluating AI coding tool quality. It refers to the maximum number of tokens a model can "remember" and process in a single conversation. In real-world coding scenarios, a medium-sized project might contain dozens of files and thousands of lines of code. The model needs to simultaneously understand the project architecture, current file, related dependencies, and the user's modification intent. If the context window is too short (say, only 8K or 16K tokens), the model will frequently "forget" previous code context, causing generated code to conflict with existing code or repeatedly asking users to re-provide information. Today's top models support context windows of 128K or even 200K tokens, enabling them to comprehend an entire medium-sized project in one go.

Windsurf later eliminated free credits in favor of direct subscriptions, significantly reducing its competitiveness.

8. Claude Code: Powerful but Hostile to Users in China

Claude Code was hyped as the ultimate AI coding tool, and it does perform well in practice. However, it has a fatal flaw for users in China: accounts get banned frequently, with no refunds. Monthly costs run between 1,000–2,000 RMB (~$140–280). Considering that Codex's capabilities are now on par with Claude Code, the value proposition has weakened considerably.

The root cause of the banning issue lies in Anthropic's strict policies on user regions and usage behavior. Due to terms of service restrictions, accounts registered through proxies or unofficial channels face a high risk of suspension, creating a significant barrier and financial risk for users in China.

9. Gemini Code (Google): Awkwardly Positioned, Neither Here nor There

Google's AI coding tool, built on its own Gemini series models. While Gemini has unique advantages in multimodal understanding (processing text, images, and video simultaneously), it still falls short of Claude and GPT-4 in terms of pure code generation accuracy and consistency. Its positioning is awkward — it's not as accessible as CodeBuddy for beginners, yet it can't keep up with Codex or Claude Code for professional developers.

Vibe Coding Tool Recommendations: Find Your Fit

User Type	Recommended Tool	Reasoning
Complete beginners (free)	CodeBuddy	Free, Chinese-friendly, strong GLM model coding capabilities
Intermediate users (free)	Trae (domestic) + Kilo	Use Trae late at night, use Kilo during the day for free access to foreign models
Users willing to pay	Codex	The ceiling for general-purpose agents, most complete ecosystem
Professional developers	Codex / Claude Code	Most powerful capabilities, but Claude Code carries account ban risks

Final Thoughts

Vibe Coding is no longer a niche concept — it's a leverage point that everyone in the AI era should try. As someone put it: "Vibe Coding is truly addictive."

For users in China, the combination of CodeBuddy (with the GLM model) + Trae domestic version is the optimal zero-cost entry strategy. The moment you experience AI turning your ideas directly into a working product, you'll understand why every top global company is betting on this space.

From a broader perspective, Vibe Coding represents more than just a change in how we program — it's a fundamental shift in human-machine collaboration. When "writing code," a skill that once required years of professional training to master, becomes a natural language interaction available to everyone, the democratization of software development will accelerate dramatically. And what we're seeing now may be just the beginning of this revolution.