我把3个永久免费的AI编程工具扒了个底朝天，发现免费是有代价的I Thoroughly Examined 3 Permanently Free AI Programming Tools and Found That Free Comes at a Price

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1. The key phrases are all "permanently free," "unlimited quota," and "better experience than the paid version."

2. Immediately below, over a dozen recommendations exploded — Trae, Windsurf, Tongyi Lingma — all names familiar,

3. This tool deserves my closest scrutiny, because its pitfalls are the deepest and most hidden.

A few days ago, someone in the group shared a screenshot asking: Cursor is up for renewal again — nearly $200 a year. Is there a truly free alternative?

Immediately below, over a dozen recommendations exploded — Trae, Windsurf, Tongyi Lingma — all names familiar, with key phrases like "permanently free," "unlimited quota," and "better than the paid version."

I read those replies with skepticism. Last year I fell for the same pitch, installed a bunch of tools claiming to be free, and ended up paying just as much — plus hitting plenty of hidden traps along the way.

This time I decided to dig in thoroughly and examine each of these three spotlighted tools — how "free" is their free tier, really.

In case you don't have the patience to read through, I'll lay out the findings right here at the top.

All three platforms genuinely offer free basic features — no entry fee whatsoever. Install and go: code completion, Q&A, code generation — none of these everyday tasks cost a cent.

But the real dividing line lies in "advanced capabilities" — once you want to tackle heavy lifting, like reading a dozen files at once, auto-refactoring large chunks of code, or using the strongest models, the free quota either burns through quickly or gets locked away entirely.

To sum up my findings in one sentence: the free tiers of all three are more like "samples" than "the full meal." Fine for occasional small projects, but if you rely on them as your primary development tool, you'll eventually hit an invisible wall.

Here's a breakdown of where each wall is built.

Trae: The most generous free tier, but with a quietly changed rulebook

Trae is made by ByteDance and has a solid reputation. Among the three, it's the most "generous" to free users — the basic tier has no feature阉割 (no functional cuts), no project size limits, and both completion and chat are fully open. Built-in models like Claude also enjoy considerable freedom at the free level. Many users come specifically for "free access to Claude."

But once I dug into the billing rules, I found a detail that many recommendation articles fail to clarify.

In February 2026, Trae quietly changed its billing method. It used to be "capped request counts" — you knew exactly how many times per month you could use it; after the change, it switched to token-based billing, divided into five tiers.

What does this mean? It no longer counts "how many questions you asked," but rather "how many tokens that question consumed." This makes usage much harder to estimate — asking the same question with a large project versus an empty file will burn drastically different amounts of tokens.

The free tier does provide a base quota. Based on community tests, it's roughly enough for about 5,000 completions. More than enough for light use, but if you use it daily on large repos, you'll likely run out by month's end. When that happens, upgrade to Pro — around $10/month, half the price of Cursor's paid tier.

My judgment: Trae's free诚意 is genuine, but the shift to token-based billing means the "unlimited free" claim is now outdated. Use it as your main tool, and keep your own ledger.

Tongyi Lingma: The biggest pitfall is "you thought it was still fully free"

This tool deserves my closest scrutiny, because its pitfalls are the deepest and most hidden.

Tongyi Lingma is Alibaba's product and is very popular in China. For a long time, it was indeed generous — the personal Pro version offered a limited-time free period, building a large base of users accustomed to "using things for free."

Then on May 20, 2026, the free period ended.

Many people had no idea. Several friends of mine still believe Lingma is "permanently fully free" — until one day they tried to use the multi-file feature and got a popup saying their quota was exhausted. That's when they realized the truth.

The current situation: it has been officially renamed to Qoder CN, with an entirely new billing system.

• Community Edition: permanently free, but core features (completion, Q&A, single-file generation) are subject to daily call limits.

• Capabilities that have been cut: multi-file coordination, code refactoring, sub-agent collaboration, task planning — none of these advanced features are available in the Community Edition.

• Pro Edition: ¥59/month, giving you 2,000 credits. Multi-file, refactoring, and other features unlock only here — and once your quota runs out, you'll need to top up.

Translated plainly: The "does everything for free" Lingma you remember no longer exists. The current free version is a stripped-down edition where basic completion is fine but advanced features cost money.

My judgment: If you've kept using it because "it used to be fully free," it's time to reconsider. The Community Edition is still passable, but don't expect it to handle heavy work.

Windsurf: The most stingy free quota, but hiding a pricier cost

Windsurf is a product of Codeium, very popular overseas, featuring an AI agent called Cascade that can auto-modify large chunks of code.

Its free tier restrictions are the most straightforward:

• Tab completion, inline editing: unlimited, use freely.

• Cascade agent calls: limited by daily and weekly quotas, which are quite small. Under the March 2026 revised rules, the free tier gets only a few dozen calls per month — if you actually use it for work, you'll run out in two or three days.

• Available models: only basic models are provided; to use frontier models like Claude or GPT-5, you need the Pro tier starting at $15–20/month, with the most expensive Max tier at $200.

But beyond quota, there's a cost many people overlook — privacy.

The free tier's terms clearly state: your code context may be used to train their models. In other words, the more smoothly you use it, the more code you're feeding them. It doesn't matter for open-source projects, but for company code or commercial projects, this detail is worth serious consideration.

My judgment: Windsurf's free tier is more like a "trial coupon." Fine for a taste, but relying on it long-term for free is unrealistic, and free users must accept that their code might be "seen."

Comparing all three — how to choose?

I've compiled the key information into one table so you can see at a glance:

Tool | What's Free | Free Tier Ceiling | Paid Starting Price Trae | Completion + chat + some models, no feature cuts | Token billing now; large projects burn through quickly | ~$10/month Tongyi Lingma (Qoder CN) | Completion + Q&A, daily call limits | No multi-file, no refactoring; free period ended | ¥59/month Windsurf | Unlimited completion, limited Cascade quota | Agent quota is very small; only basic models | $15–20/month

After seeing this table, you may have already figured it out: there is no truly "unlimited free" lunch. The free tier generally only covers lightweight tasks like completion and Q&A. Once you touch "agents," "multi-file," or "powerful models" — the capabilities that actually boost productivity — money has to follow.

So how should different people choose? Here are three suggestions:

If you're a student with zero budget: go with Trae. Its free quota is the most generous. Token billing requires some accounting, but light use is basically sufficient. The Community Edition of Tongyi Lingma also works — sufficient for daily completion.

If you're working on company projects or commercial code: prioritize domestic tools that allow you to opt out of training授权. Don't贪免费 (greedily chase free) and feed your code away. Windsurf's free-tier privacy terms need to be read carefully before use.

If you depend on this for work and chew through large projects daily: stop clinging to the free tier. Pay when you need to. Trae Pro or Cursor, a few dozen dollars a month, gets you unlimited agent calls and the strongest models — that value far exceeds the money you'd save by staying free.

Final thoughts

After writing this, I actually feel at peace.

Free tools aren't unusable — I still use their free tiers for lightweight work myself. But "free" has never been the destination; it's a bait — it draws you in, lets you get comfortable and form a habit, then gently tells you at the moment you can't live without it: heavy work requires payment.

This isn't any single company's fault; this is simply business. But for us as tool users, understanding this logic is crucial.

My stance has not changed: tools are for improving efficiency, not for catering to your wallet. Use freely whatever can be used for free; wherever money is needed, calculate whether it's worth it before you pay.

Don't let the four characters "permanently free" cloud your judgment. The truly money-saving approach isn't finding the cheapest tool — it's knowing exactly what you need, and paying only for the part you actually need.