been running a library that tracks 135+ AI coding tools by how long their free tier actually lasts for a while now. the most consistent piece of feedback i kept getting was some version of “who are you to rate these tools” which is a fair point. so i rebuilt the rating system from scratch. you can now sign in with Google and upvote or downvote any tool directly on the page. the scores update in real time based on actual votes from people who have used the tools. if you think a rating is wrong you can now actually do something about it instead of leaving a comment that nobody reads. the idea is that the scores should reflect collective real-world experience rather than one person’s assessment. a tool that gets consistently downvoted by people who actually used it should have a lower score than a tool that everyone who touches it loves. seems obvious in hindsight but it took a while to build properly. a few things that came out of the data while building this: the gap between how tools market themselves and how developers actually feel about them is significant. tools with the most aggressive “free” marketing tend to get the most downvotes once people hit the actual limits. the self-hosted category consistently gets the most positive reactions despite being the least talked about. developers who go through the setup effort tend to be genuinely satisfied. the tools where “free” means you are actually paying Anthropic or OpenAI through your own API key get mixed reactions - some developers genuinely prefer the transparency of BYOK, others feel misled by the free label. if you have used any AI coding tools and have opinions about whether the ratings are accurate - Tolop - Google login to vote, no account needed to browse. curious whether community voting actually changes the rankings meaningfully over the next few weeks or whether my original scores hold up. submitted by /u/DAK12_YT
Originally posted by u/DAK12_YT on r/ArtificialInteligence